


I Never Had A Fear of Drowning

by EzzyDean



Series: Puzzles of Our Souls [2]
Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3951793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzzyDean/pseuds/EzzyDean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every person you meet changes your life in some way.  Even the smallest brush of shoulders can send ripples through your life that you won't even fully feel for years.  It's not always easy accepting other people into your life but if you can you often find that it is more than worth it in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Changes

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically my fic [ Shatter My Illusion of You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3609855) from Haru's POV. You can technically read this fic as a stand alone but it makes even more sense if you read Shatter first.

The day he heard the news should have been the day the world stopped.  At least that’s the way it happened in the movies his parents had taken him to when he was younger.  The way it happened in the mangas that Makoto left in his room on occasion.  The way it happened in the stories.  The hero hears devastating news and the entire world comes to a standstill.

But nothing changed.  Not really.

Haru wasn’t a hero, even in his own story, and not a single thing changed the day he found out he would most likely be dead in under two years.

He went to his classes the next day like nothing had happened.  He got homework and turned in assignments.  He went to swim practice and stayed as late as he could before someone came back in and kicked him out.

Nothing changed.

There were a lot of technical terms that made his parents’ faces blanch that he didn’t bother listening to.  What was the point?  It all boiled down to the same thing in the end.

He’d be dead before he was twenty-one and now all his worries about the future and finding his own dream back in high school seem like such a pointless waste.

As much as his parents love him they’ve never really known what to do with him and now is no exception.  There’s talk of finding specialists and trials but he’s done with it.  They’ve been doing this for over a year now and he’s just… done.  So his parents do the only thing they can think of.  They give him the space he seems to want.  Continue to give him an allowance in his bank account every month so he can continue paying his bills and going to school like always.

Nothing changes.

He stops going to classes as much but they let him work from home - not that his tiny apartment feels like home, whatever that’s supposed to feel like - and turn in his assignments when he finishes them.

Makoto and Rin both bring up soulbonding when they learn how bad it is.  Not that they really know the extent of it.  Soulbonding  is  technically an option but he refuses to consider it for long.  No way is he putting either of his closest friends through that.  They’re both far too romantic and too kind to suffer through what he knows will inevitably happen: they’ll bond (because there’s no reason he wouldn’t be able to bond with either of them) and then he’ll be dead in a few months and it won’t have done a damn thing in the end.  Haru never intends on letting them know just how bad it is.  

He’s not on the team anymore.  He finds he doesn’t care that much about swimming competitively again.  Any dream he had found has slipped away through his fingers again.  He swims when he wants to and even though he’s not on the team the school lets him use the pool when he wants.  One final good deed for the kid who had so much promise and who will be gone far too soon.  

As if they really care about him.

When he can’t swim he draws.  It’s not the same as the water enveloping him and soothing away his worries but it’s the closest thing he’s ever found on land.  The smooth glide of pencil on paper helps draw out the swirling darkness in his mind and clear his thoughts in a way similar to the pool.  Sketchbooks carefully filled and filed away where no one will see them until after he’s gone.

In the end nothing’s changed.

He’s drawing more.  Sleeping less and less.

Sometimes he feels like he should be angrier at everything.  He can feel the black pit in his stomach bubbling and pulsing through his veins and he feels a little like he could just burst.  But then Makoto’s worried face, his hurt eyes, flash through Haru’s mind like fireworks and he stops.  Screws the cap on his emotions a little tighter.

The last thing he wants to do is deal with that again.  It’s so troublesome.  It’s just easier to ignore those feelings and leave them tucked away.  It will be over soon enough anyway.

Rin and Makoto try to talk to him about soulbonding again.

He refuses.

Somehow, deep inside, he still feels like nothing has changed.

 

 

When the knock at his door comes he ignores it.  A quick glance at the clock shows him it’s nearly three in the morning.  The knock comes again and he gets up with a sigh.  The last thing he wants to deal with is someone mistakenly knocking on his door at three in the morning.  He opens the door to see Yamazaki standing there.  Which is better than a random stranger by only a small margin.  A very small margin.

He’s feels he’s more sociable than he needs to be given what time it is.  For example: he doesn’t slam the door in Yamazaki’s face.  Although he doesn’t actually invite him in before he turns around and leaves him standing in the doorway either.  If Yamazaki wants to come in he’ll come in.

Yamazaki settles at the other side of the small table as Haru pulls his sketchbook to himself and drops his eyes to to it when Yamazaki starts talking.  He doesn’t look up as he talks, simply lets Yamazaki’s voice flow through him as he sketches and shades, filling the paper with lines and shadows.  He hears everything Yamazaki says, his offer of a soulbond, and as he slows his sketching he notes that overall it sounds logical, but he can’t quite grasp the reasoning, can’t quite figure out just  _ why _ Yamazaki is sitting on the floor of Haru’s apartment at three in the morning as if it’s natural, as if they’re friends.

“Why?”  He finally asks and he’s not sure if he’s asking why Yamazaki is willing to go through with it or if he’s questioning why they’re seated at the table like they do this all the time and it’s not an obscene hour of the day.

“Why not?”

Haru’s not amused at all by the reply or the offhand casual way Yamazaki says it.  That’s the thing about Yamazaki, one of the things anyway, that always sets Haru on edge.  He drops such heavy words and thoughts like they weigh nothing.  Like his words didn’t just have the potential to throw Haru’s life into complete disarray.  Like he’s not aware of the rippling waves that he makes just by being there; waves that cut through the still peacefulness of Haru’s existence.

“Honestly?  I’m not entirely sure why I’m offering.  It’s not like we’re great friends and I don’t exactly have a personal investment in your well being or anything.  I mean if you never woke up tomorrow I can’t say as I would mourn you too long.”  Haru can’t quite keep his huff of laughter quiet because Yamazaki has no idea just how close he is to that being the truth.  Haru might very well  not wake up tomorrow.  “I know the feeling is pretty mutual too.”

“Is it because of Rin?”

“Part of it, yeah.”

“Wouldn’t soulbonding with me put a damper on getting into his pants?”

Yamazaki snorts.  “Getting into Rin’s pants may have motivated me once upon a time years ago, when I was like sixteen.  Now it’s more like I know you’re an important friend to him, and apparently a few other people, and if I have a chance to keep Rin from losing a close friend I’ll take it.  Or offer it in this case.”  

Haru keeps sketching, putting the final touches on his drawing as he mulls over Yamazaki’s words.  He doesn’t think he’s lying mostly because he has no reason to.  Also because if nothing else Yamazaki has always been truthful when speaking to Haru, even if the truth he thought he knew was a little muddled in the end.  But it’s also not like Yamazaki to be so selfless, at least where Haru is concerned.  He raises his pencil from the paper and feels a twinge of loss at the knowledge his drawing was complete.  Then he finally meets Yamazaki’s gaze.

“What’s in it for you?”

Yamazaki sighs and drops his elbows onto the table, propping his chin on one hand.  “Look.  I’m not exactly the ‘soulmates finding each other and living happily ever after’ sort of person.  We do this, I help save your life.  I save myself plenty of grief in regards to soulmate crap.  Yay for both of us.”

“What if Rin needs you?”

“Rin will find his soulmate.  But it’s not gonna be me.  Not in the way he wants or needs a soulmate anyway.  I’m his best friend and I always will be.  But we’ll never be more than that.”

The reasoning resonates with what plays in his head when Makoto starts to bring up soulbonding with him.  He loves Makoto, he truly does, but he’s not what Makoto needs, or deserves, and if nothing else he supposes he can at least respect Yamazaki’s reasoning.

He sets his sketchbook down and drops his pencil to the table as he stands.

“I’m going to bed.”

Yamazaki’s offer plays and replays as he lays in his bed with his eyes closed.  He’s not going to be sleeping tonight.  He wouldn’t have even if Yamazaki hadn’t shown up.

Should he really bother?  Would it really be worth the effort?

Does he really want to try again?  To take a chance and drain the murky water from his mind and see that clear expanse wide open in front of him?

“Why?”  He mutters and rolls onto his side, curling into his blankets as Yamazkai’s voice answers in his mind.

_ “Why not?” _

 

_ Finally _ , that small part of him that craves the waves and open waters of a long life churns into motion,  _ something’s changed . _


	2. Water, Water Everywhere

Yamazaki’s words follow him around his apartment like kittens waiting for food.  Tight on his ankles, crawling up his legs when he tries to ignore them and wriggling around his stomach, pricking claws of confusion and uncertainty into the soft skin.  They tangle around him and trip him up when he shuffles from his bedroom to his kitchen after laying in bed until the early morning hours chasing sleep that refuses to be caught.  They look over his shoulder and wrap lazy tails around his throat when he digs through his drawers and lines his jammers up on his bed.  They scamper and leap around each other, thumping into the corners of his mind before tensing and scattering the moment he steps up to try and grasp them.

He can’t catch up with them and he can’t get away from them.  Not even when Makoto insists that he come along to a get together at the mall and the others are there for distraction.

He doesn’t try to be rude to Yamazaki, not consciously anyway.  But he isn’t really sure if he can be anything more than merely civil to him right now either.  He settles for sticking close to Makoto when possible and staring at the sleeves of his hoodie when Makoto steps away, only taking the quickest of glances towards the others.  It isn’t like he doesn’t want to be here.  He does truly love and appreciate all his friends.  It just seems like so much effort and it feels like everyone is putting on a show of good cheer just for him.  It’s frustrating.

Watching Yamazaki roll his eyes at something Nagisa says that has Rin laughing he wonders if it’s too late for him to be a part of that now.  The realization that it probably is makes him feel hollow.  A little like he’s lost something that he wasn’t even aware he had.

“Everything all right?”  Makoto’s voice is as soft and kind as always but it has a tinge of worry to it that Haru is just so tired of hearing out of everyone.

“Just tired,” Haru replies, eyes skittering away from Makoto’s after only a moment.  He knows that Makoto isn’t stupid, that they’ve been friends far too long for him to believe that that’s all.  But, like usual, Makoto doesn’t push it.

Not even when he follows Haru back to his apartment and has supper with him.  Not even when Haru starts losing focus during their conversation.  Not even when Haru barely eats his food and simply tucks most of it away into his nearly empty fridge.

Makoto leaves with a promise to stop by and see him soon and Haru’s left with his kitten thoughts tumbling through the rooms of his mind.

He pulls out his sketchbook and settles onto the floor next to the low table.

 

It’s late when he shuffles into the locker room the next day.  Late enough that almost the entire swim team is already packed up and gone, only a couple straggling first years and the coach waiting to lock up the place.  They give Haru fleeting looks filled with sympathy and curiosity, eyes heavy on him when he slips out of his clothes and shoves them into a locker.  His goggles and cap dangle loosely in his fingers as he pads out to the pool.

Those looks follow him even into the water and he can feel the weight of them trying to pull him under even though no one is there with him.  But he knows better.  The water would never hurt him that way.  He had nothing to fear from it, he never has, he knows that.  

He takes a deep breath and twists onto his stomach, gliding through the water with long strokes.  

Even if the water starts to feel a little like it’s catching on him, snagging on his worries and dragging them out to the surface, he keeps going.  Going and going and going until he finally hits the wall and pops out to take a gasp of air.

He blinks in confusion at the hand being offered to him.  Flashes of high school, his future laid out in front of him, his friends cheering him on wash over him.  He shakes the water from his hair - and the thoughts from his mind - and glances up at the man in front of him from under his bangs.

 

The coach is a decent man, Haru supposes as he half listens to him talk, eyes already drifting back towards the pool and that familiar pull writhing under his skin, he had seemed genuinely distressed when he had heard about Haru’s condition.  Not just the “oh poor kid dying young” distressed or the “oh he had such a promising future” distressed.  But an honest “I’ve gotten to know you a bit and what’s happening to you is unfair and that frustrates me” sort of distressed.  Haru isn’t sure but he thinks the coach is the one who convinced the school to allow him to do his school work from home and use the pool after practice hours.

Which is probably why he looks so uncomfortable breaking the news to Haru now.

“The school has decided that given the continuing decline of your health it is in the best interest of everyone for you to have some kind of supervision while you’re in the pool.”

“Oh,” is all he says when the words finally sink in.  He curls his toes in the small puddle of water at his feet and stares at the pool.  In other words since he’s not getting any better the school thinks he needs a babysitter to make sure he doesn’t croak in the pool or something.  He’s no longer a sympathy case, merely a liability, and they need to cover their own asses.

“I’m more than happy to stay after practice longer with you if you’d like.  And, as has always been the case, you’re more than welcome to come during practice.  Or if you have a friend you want to join you I’m sure the school would be fine with that.”

Haru thinks he makes some noise of acknowledgement as he twists his goggle strap in his fingers.

 

He tries for a few days the next couple weeks.  Stays after practice with the coach.  But it doesn’t feel the same.  It doesn’t feel right.  The water doesn’t relax him the way it does when he’s by himself.

He likes being alone in the water.  He doesn’t like the critical eyes on him, even if it’s just the coach glancing up every now and then to check that he’s still okay.  They have a completely different weight to them than any gazes back in high school did.  Those searching glances feel too much like the nightmares and he hates that.  He hates having something from his unconscious dreams crashing into his waking life and mucking up the feel of the water against his skin.

Sketching can only do so much to relieve the tension coiling inside him.  There are only so many ways he can think to drain the emotions from his skin and fill the paper with them.

When his fingers are blackened with graphite from his pencils and he can’t stand the feel of the paper under his fingertips any longer, when he’s gone through two new sketchbooks in under four days, when featureless figures chase him even in his waking moments he tries again.

It’s been almost two weeks since he swam.

He goes in near the end of practice and ignores the gazes of his former teammates.  The worried glances, the judging stares, the pitying looks.  They take in his pale skin, the bags growing under his eyes, and everything else that he can’t hide once he strips down to his jammers: the kitten claws of his thoughts have left their marks on him.

It’s a disaster.  He had thought, had hoped, that the other bodies in the water might help.  Maybe remind him of swimming with his friends in high school, maybe even give him a sliver of that competitive spirit that had driven him to university to chase his dreams.  Instead his nightmares surge up from the depth of the water and drag him under.

He spends three hours in the tub that night just trying to get the slimy feel of broken dreams and lost opportunities off of him.

 

A few days later he stops by the pool after dropping off some assignments - honestly he’s not even sure why he’s still bothering with class work other than it gives him something to focus on when he’s not drawing or trying to chase sleep - and he’s the first one in the locker room.  It reminds him of high school a bit and he almost expects Nagisa to come barreling in any moment with Rei in his clutches.  Haru steps over to a locker and pauses when the chattering of his former university teammates starts echoing through the room.  No one really pays him much attention, there are no familiar voices calling out to him or hearty slaps on the shoulder like there had been when he first joined.  A hook of longing catches his gut and he takes a shaky breath as something washes over him.  Nostalgia maybe, he thinks as he grips the door and stares into the empty locker.  

Nagisa’s cheerful laughter, Rei’s long suffering yet fond sighs, Makoto’s strict and kind voice echoing through the room as Gou called for them to hurry up.  They all chase after each other in his mind, kitten thoughts finally having a voice of their own.  Someone bumps his shoulder and suddenly he snaps back to now.  The loud laughter and shouts of his former university teammates - really they’re barely more than strangers now - echo through the locker room and he brings up shaky hands to cover his ears.

It’s his nightmares all over again only he knows he’s awake.

Because there is no feeling of familiarity.  No comfort of friendship.

Only overwhelming noise filling his ears and a sense of dread reaching up to rip him inside out at the first chance.

It’s not until he feels warm fingers on his arm that he even realizes he shut his eyes.  He blinks up at the coach, eyes watering against the bright lights after being squeezed shut so tightly, and takes a shuddering breath.

 

He wanders through the library, not ready to go back to his apartment yet, not ready to face the quiet reminders of everything he could have had tucked into drawers and boxes he never bothered unpacking.  Even playing the radio doesn’t help fill the silences.  The quiet in the library isn’t the same as his apartment.  It’s not stifling.  It doesn’t feel like it’s waiting for something.  He thinks it might even be a good place to curl up with his sketchbook someday.

He turns the corner of an aisle, mind wandering as he skims the books on the shelves, and there Yamazaki is.  Bent over a table with a handful of books spread out around him.  Haru forgot sometimes that they went to the same university since Yamazaki wasn’t on the team and they never ran into each other on campus.

He’s still stalling, avoiding going back to that silence, when he shuffles over, throwing a shadow over Yamazaki’s table.  He’s not even sure what he’s going to say until he opens his mouth.

“How’s it done exactly?”  His eyes focus in on one of Yamazaki’s books when the other teen starts and blinks up at him in a daze.

“Excuse me?”

“Soulbonding.  What’s the process?”

“The actual process is different for everyone,”  Yamazaki rolls his shoulders and gestures towards the chair in front of Haru but Haru keeps his eyes on the table for now, still not even sure why he’s here talking to Yamazaki.  He could have just kept walking around the library even after he spotted him.  “But the general idea is once two people decide to go ahead with a bond they find a Soul Counselor and then the counselor walks them through the process.  It’s generally not as simple as, say, getting married.  You can’t just sign a paper in front of a few witnesses and be bound.  There’s usually a lot of touching each other’s hands to start the connection and then working from there to reach out to the other person with your mind and soul.  It can take a while and both people have to be willing to make the effort towards a bond so you can’t force it on someone and it makes it hard to bond with someone you don’t trust.”

He tries to take all of that in and finally glances up at Yamazaki with a frown.  Did he do all of this research before offering the bond to Haru?  “You know a lot about it.” 

“I’m going to school for Physical Therapy.”  He gestures to the books and notes he has spread out over the library table.  “Soulbonding was one of the electives I took.  Seemed interesting enough at the time and if it works between a pair it can be a huge benefit to someone who needs PT.”

Ah.  Of course he didn’t do all that research just for Haru.  It would have been silly for him to have put so much effort into something that Haru still wasn’t even sure he was seriously considering.

“Healing each other’s bodies.”  

“Yes.  But the emotional support between a pair can also help some people.  The knowledge that no matter what you’re not alone, that it’s basically impossible to have to face something alone once you’ve bonded, can be a very important factor in the recovery process for certain patients.”

Impossible to face something alone?  Haru wonders at that.  Even with all his friends around him he’s still always had a part of himself that was alone.  The quietness of his apartment comes to mind and he swallows hard.

“You sound like a textbook,” he muses, but the words lack the kind of playful bite that their conversations used to have back in high school.  His eyes skitter across the books and notes spread across the table.

“Probably because I read that in my textbook a couple weeks ago when I was studying for exams.”  Yamazaki laughs softly and Haru is a little surprised that it doesn’t rile him up.  It sounds friendly and that hollow feeling in his chest twinges at it.  He mentally shakes himself loose from the thought and focuses back in on Yamazaki’s voice.  “Are you considering it with me?”

“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully.

He can feel Yamazaki studying him.  Probably taking in the paleness and the way he stands with his hands shoved in his hoodie pocket.  Haru wonders why it doesn’t feel quite as heavy as everyone else’s has lately, the way the swim team’s had.  Maybe it’s the familiarity to it, they do know each other at least a little bit after all.  Or maybe it’s because there’s no pity in it.  Sure he knows Yamazaki feels bad for him in a way, but it’s not the poor boy dying pity.  It’s something else, something that feels a little like- 

“Here,” Yamazaki says as he shuffles through his bookbag and hands a book to Haru.  He takes it carefully because while they know each other, giving each other things other than headaches isn’t really their thing.  “It’s my Soulbonding textbook,” Yamazaki explains as Haru runs his fingers over the smooth cover and creased spine.  “My class is over so you can look through it.  Maybe it will help.”  With that he goes back to his work and leaves Haru to stand and stare down at him.

He settles into the chair across from Yamazaki and watches him for a couple minutes.  Once upon a time kindness was the last thing he would have expected to receive from Yamazaki.  Yet here he is being offered Yamazaki’s form of kindness twice in less than two months.  He wonders if this would be a sort of kindness Yamazaki would still be willing to share with him in a few more months when his body really starts turning against him.  The idea that Yamazaki is far kinder than he lets on isn’t a surprise.  Rin really wouldn’t be friends with a complete asshole no matter what.  He’s just not sure what sort of person Yamazaki really is where he’s concerned.

Haru’s eyes drop to the book in his lap and he shakes his head.

  
  


He vaguely registers Yamazaki leaving at some point but he doesn’t leave until the librarian comes over and tells him the library is closing in a few minutes.  He blinks himself out of the daze he had been in and checks his phone.  It’s 8:50 and he has two messages from Makoto.

As he makes his way back to his apartment he wonders if Makoto would join him for swimming.  If it would be better with Makoto there.  He knows Makoto, Makoto knows him.  A familiar presence in the water instead of the harsh eyes of people who might as well be complete strangers for all they know him.

Then he realizes that Makoto would want answers to things that Haru isn’t sure he’s ready to put his best friend through.  It’s not like he doesn’t think Makoto can handle it.  It’s just that he doesn’t think Makoto should  have to handle it.   He shouldn’t even have to be handing this.  He should be worrying about things like staying up too late to turn in his Mixed Media assignment on time and if his times will be enough to keep up with Rin.  Not whether or not he’ll be able to swim properly ever again and if he’ll be able to sleep tonight without nightmares waking him.

He settles onto the floor with a sigh and pulls out his sketchbook but his eyes keep drifting from the blank page to the textbook sitting on the table in front of him.  A quick glance at the clock shows that it’s already midnight.  He snaps his sketchbook shut and pulls the book to him.

It’s filled with a lot of technical stuff that Haru is sure is helpful to someone studying soulbonds and the way they affect people but doesn’t really help him any.  He mostly skims the chapters at first, catching the key points here and there, and then flips back to the first chapter and settles in.

_ Soulbonds are a part of our world that may never be fully understood.  The intimate connection between two people, two souls, is a life-changing event that still holds many mysteries even with all our advances in science and the study of soulbonds . _  Haru snorts a little.  What a nice way to say that they don’t really know anything about the mechanics of it.  _ Learning more about soulbonds is often difficult because of the extremely personal and private nature of most bonds.  Each bond is unique.  No two couples will experience a bond in exactly the same fashion as another which makes collecting definite information about soulbonds tricky and complex. _

Haru rolls his eyes and bypasses the rest of the introductory babble until he gets to the chapters that give him real information.

_ Keys to a successful soulbond include remaining relaxed around your potential soulbond partner and trusting them.  Bonding with your soulmate should never be anything but comfortable for both of you.  Forcing a bond will only result in nothing happening and frustration building for both parties.  You must let a soulbond occur naturally.  It is not uncommon for even the most compatible of people to have trouble with the initial bonding process. _

While the words seem technical and knowledgeable the only thing Haru can really think is that he’s glad Yamazaki shelled out the money for this book and not him.  Because honestly all that told him was that everyone bonds differently (which is obvious to anyone who has ever even spoken to someone with a bond, so basically everyone) and that you can’t force it (which again, everyone knows.)

Mostly the book just explains things he already knows just from books and tv and just living in general.  Though there are a few things that it confirms for him that he hadn’t known for sure.  Things like bonds being permanent and that most bonds don’t even affect the other person’s body or health outside of the occasional pain bleeding through if one’s partner is hurt badly enough.

_ One of the biggest benefits to a soulbond, other than affirming your feelings for the other person, is that they come with the knowledge that, as long as your partner and you are both alive you will never be alone once you have bonded.  This is a very important part of the healing process for many people and it can be a huge burden lifted to know, without a doubt, you are connected to someone and they will always be there for you. _

_ Soulbonds are not something to be treated lightly.  Always put careful consideration into your soulbonding decision.  You should never consider a soulbond unless you are one hundred percent willing to accept the other person as they are and are willing to have them accept you. _

Yamazaki?  Willing to accept Haru and have Haru accept him?  That seems… hard to believe.  Those kitten thoughts come stumbling back and sink their prickly claws into his skin.  Yamazaki’s light  why not? pricking under his skin and making him itch to be free of it.

Haru needs answers.  Answers that won’t come from a textbook.  Answers that won’t flow from his pencil to his paper.  Answers that he can’t get by himself.

 

He really should stop and find something to eat on his way to Yamazaki’s apartment.  He can’t remember the last time he actually ate something.  He knows it was the day before but he can’t recall if it was lunch or breakfast he had.  He should stop.  But he’s just not hungry.  It takes him longer than expected to find Yamazaki’s apartment - he had only been here once before when Rin had insisted he come with for something or another - but it’s nearly six in the morning when he knocks on Yamazaki’s door.

Then knocks again with a frown when he doesn’t answer right away.

He’s still not one hundred percent sure why he’s here or what he expects from Yamazaki.

“Will wonders never cease?”  Yamazaki mumbles as he blinks blearily at Haru.  Haru’s fingers tighten on the strap of his messenger bag.  He debates if he should maybe just forget the whole thing and just go back.  Return to his too quiet apartment and fill another sketchbook.  Then Yamazaki sighs and makes some vague gesture towards him.  “I can’t deal with whatever right now.”  _ Can’t deal with you right now _ , Haru interprets.  “I’m going back to sleep for at least two more hours,” Yamazaki announces and leaves Haru standing in his open doorway.  The irony isn’t lost on Haru.  “Do whatever you want just don’t wake me up until at least eight.”  He adds over his shoulder as he shuffles away.

“At least it’s not three AM,” Haru states as he toes off his shoes and softly closes the door behind him.

“You had no intention of going to sleep at that point anyway.”

“Says you.”

“And I’m right, aren’t I?”  Haru simply stares at him for a moment.  Yamazaki looks smug even through his sleepiness.  “Like I said.  I need a couple more hours of sleep.  Try not to break anything of mine.”

Yamazaki heads back to his room and leaves Haru standing in his entryway.

“Try not to break anything,” Haru mocks under his breath as he wanders through Yamazaki’s apartment.  He skims through the small bookcase in the living room.  Pokes around Yamazaki’s cupboards and debates making himself something to eat; Yamazaki did say to do whatever he wanted.

But that feels like too much effort so he simply flops onto the couch and pulls out the textbook again.  He skims through it for awhile, idly turning pages and reading random captions and paragraphs, fingers twitching along the edges as he focuses in on various pages.  Before long he’s too distracted to even bother with the book, he keeps flipping pages back and forth, the words a blur as he loses focus.

His eyes drift up from the pages and he glances around the apartment.  The quiet here surprises him.  The apartment should practically shout at him, throw reminders of broken dreams and lost time in his face.  The pictures on Yamazaki’s bookcase of him and Rin and the Samezuka team should stir up that nostalgia and eat away at him.  The stack of textbooks and class notes should cover him in that slick jealousy of a future planned out and attainable.  A reminder on the fridge to call Mikoshiba about planning some future get together with Rin should send a jolt of envy through him at the easy friendship and promise of more time together.

But it doesn’t.  

It’s quiet here.  But not stifling like his apartment.  It doesn’t make him feel like he  needs  to fill the room with the desperate scratching of pencil on paper, like he needs to fight the silence to prove he’s still alive, like every breath could be his last one.

There’s promise here.  Potential.  It reminds him of the Tachibana’s house a little.  He wonders if, maybe, this is what… 

With a frustrated huff he stands and shoves the book on Yamazaki’s bookcase, shelving his wondering thoughts along with it.  A short walk through the apartment again and he finds himself back in front of the couch.  Now he feels wound tight, on edge, ready to burst.  Filled with energy that he would love to lose in the water.  

Eventually he settles onto one end of the couch, curling up with his sketchbook, and focuses on dumping his emotions onto the smooth emptiness of a clean page.

The last thing he remembers is being halfway through a drawing of a mermaid staring up to the surface of the water, eyes bright and longing for something out of reach.

 

He wakes up with a blanket over him and the uncomfortable throbbing of a headache from going so long without eating or proper sleep.  

“I fell asleep.”  He’s surprised he actually fell asleep.  No matter how exhausted he is he’s never been able to fall asleep somewhere he doesn’t feel comfortable.

Yamazaki says something about how long he’s been asleep and Haru shrugs and shuffles to the kitchen to find something to eat.  His stomach is threatening to riot with or without food so he figures he might as well finally put something into it.  Plus being in the kitchen gives him some distance from Yamazaki.  

It’s not that he finds the other man’s presence uncomfortable.  Not really.  Surprisingly it’s the opposite.  It’s just that he doesn’t  do people well.  Being around people tends to tire him out in the best circumstances and he always seems to inevitably trip himself up and make the other person upset and frustrated which is always a pain to deal with.

When he comes back in and they talk Yamazaki seems as confused and surprised by Haru’s comfort in his apartment as Haru is.  But he doesn’t push Haru when he eventually goes silent and turns back to his sketchbook.  He doesn’t chase after him when he pulls away, he simply turns his attention onto his homework.  

Part of Haru is grateful for that shift of focus and another part of him hates the fact that he almost misses that attention, that he feels like he needs it.  That he misses any attention that’s focused on him and not his talent or his illness.  Part of him hates the fact that he doesn’t quite hate that Yamazaki is the one giving and taking this attention.

He leaves around four that afternoon without saying goodbye.  Which is fitting since he never said hello in the first place.


	3. Friends Forever

Haru keeps finding his way back to Yamazaki.  Rin had told him once that people tended to drift towards Haru, like he was some kind of magnet that pulled everyone in.  Maybe that was why he felt so comfortable around Yamazaki now.  Now that they’ve gotten past the initial extreme dislike of each other from back in high school he can step back and see that Yamazaki never drifted to him.  Never really got caught up in Haru’s pace.  In fact, if anything, Yamazaki was the one pulling Haru along behind him.  The one making waves in Haru’s life.

He likes that, he realizes as he curls deeper into his end of Yamazaki’s couch.  He likes that nothing Yamazaki does revolves around Haru.  Even over the last few weeks when Haru has been showing up at Yamazaki’s apartment or in the library while he studies.  Yamazaki hasn’t made any plans or changed anything he’s doing for Haru or because of him.  He’s not giving up his life or future for Haru.  He’s simply letting him drift along with him.  

Which is probably why he’s finally considering it for real.  Why he’s finally thinking that maybe this won’t be so bad to try.  Because Yamazaki is perfectly fine with or without Haru in his life.

He rolls his pencil in his hand and glances up from the blank page of his sketchbook.  Yamazaki is seated in front of the other end of the couch engrossed in his textbooks and Haru feels the slightest twinge of jealousy that he still has such clear goals in mind.  But only the slightest.  Most schoolwork was never really all that interesting to him to begin with.

“Do you know any?”  He asks before he can change his mind.

Yamazaki blinks and shakes his head as he focuses on Haru.  “Know any what?”

“Soul Counselors.”  

They had started the conversation the last time Haru had been curled up on the couch sometime last week.  But Haru hadn’t been ready at that point, hadn’t been close enough to a decision and Yamazaki hadn’t pushed it when he stopped talking.

“Ah.  I don’t know any personally but it wouldn’t be hard to ask around and find a decent one.”

“Okay.”

“Okay as in you want me to ask around or…?”

“I think I want to try,” Haru murmurs.  He knows he sounds sulky and probably more than a little defensive, as if he’s sure Yamazaki will back out now, but his eyes flicker up to Yamazaki’s before returning to his sketchbook.  There’s no look of pity or a sly glint of humor like he’s going to tease Haru.  Yamazaki shuts his book and leans his head back against the couch cushion.

“There will be a lot of questions.  From the counselor.  From Rin and Tachibana.”

“Yeah.”

“They’ll want some information and most likely end up repeating a bunch of mundane things and you can’t just up and walk away if you get uncomfortable.”

“Are you talking about the counselors or our friends?”

Yamazaki snorts.  “Both.”

 

He almost backs out.  Almost doesn’t go to the appointment.  The morning of their first appointment with the Soul Counselor Haru wakes up and stares at the ceiling, a pool of dread rippling in his stomach, as the weight of his decision crushes him.  

He’s really planning on going through with this.

His phone notification light blinks at him from the kitchen counter and he debates not looking at it as he cooks himself a late breakfast.  It wouldn’t be the first time he’s ignored his phone.  But he checks it and immediately wishes he hadn’t when he sees the text from Makoto.

_ Don’t forget that Rin’s coming back soon and we’re going to get together then! _

The bite of fish in his mouth might as well be a spoonful of ash and he swallows thickly, barely getting it down.  It sits uneasily in his stomach and churns.  The nausea has been nearly constant the last few days and Makoto’s message just makes it worse.

Because Haru is keeping this from him.

He isn’t exactly going behind Makoto’s back.  But he’s still not telling him, not planning on telling him.  The last thing he wants is for Makoto to get his hopes up that this will work and then wind up even more crushed when it doesn’t.  

The knowledge that he’s keeping something this important from Makoto gnaws at him.  It writhes and claws and tries to pry it’s way out of him and he almost gives in.  Almost curls back up in bed.  He’s in the doorway of his bedroom when he spots his jammers.  Shoved off the end of the bed in a messy pile.  He freezes.

He doesn’t want to keep this from Makoto but… he doesn’t want to give up just yet.  It’s better for Makoto if Haru does this quietly.  If it turns out he and Yamazaki can bond then at least when he dies - because even if they bond he doesn’t really expect it to work, he’s going to die and he’s accepted it, mostly - his friends can be comforted with the fact that Haru tried.

He takes a deep breath and turns away from his bedroom, shoving his worries down, burying them under the rest of his thoughts as he slips into his shoes and pulls on a jacket.

 

They wind up fifteen minutes late but Yamazaki just rolls his eyes without a word as Haru reaches him and they go inside.  It’s nothing special.  It reminds Haru of every other doctor’s and counselor’s office he’s been in since this all started.  As the counselor introduces herself, “Just call me Nao,” with a polite smile he wonders just how many more of these sterile rooms he’ll see before he’s gone.

Haru sees the way Yamazaki rolls his shoulder as they sit and he tucks his hands deeper into his jacket pockets.  If he had to guess he’d say that Yamazaki has probably seen more than his fair share of these falsely pleasant rooms as well.

The last thing he had intended to do was dredge someone else’s past and pain into the light because of this.

“So you’re interested in a soulbond.”  That much should be obvious, Haru thinks, seeing as how they’re seated in her office.  He bites his cheek and keeps silent, staring at the floor.

Yamazaki, at least, can answer without sounding bored or frustrated.  “Yes.  That’s right.”

Haru can feel her eyes darting between them and wonders what she thinks of the way he’s hunched in his chair.  Wonders if Yamazaki looks as stiff and blank-faced as usual.  The counselor smiles again and leans forward.  “Okay.  First I’ll explain a few basic things about soulbonds and then if you like we can discuss a bit more about how I can help you.  Sound good?”  Haru briefly wonders if it’s too late to just go back to his apartment and pretend none of this ever happened.  To crawl back into bed and start today over.

He sees Yamazaki nod out of the corner of his eye and it hits him that this is the first time Yamazaki has gone out of his way to help Haru.  The first time since he offered the bond that he’s specifically set aside time just for Haru.

The least he can do is stick around through a session with the counselor.

Haru nods and she starts talking again.  It’s all basically stuff Haru has picked up either from Yamazaki’s textbooks, Yamazaki himself, or just what he’s known and been taught over the years.  Soulbonds are special.  Soulbonds are for life.  Soulbonds are literally a once in a lifetime occurrence: once you bond with someone neither of you can ever bond again even if one of you dies.

She keeps talking and talking, listing off random facts and thoughts - soulbonds are not a cure all, soulbonds can occasionally feel each other’s pain, soulbonds are not a guarantee of anything other than spending your life with someone.  She occasionally asks if they’re on the same page as her and Haru nods in all the right places while his thoughts drift.  Back to promises of long futures spread out in front of them.  Memories of Makoto and himself on swings and bikes.  Sleepovers and meals shared.

A promise made under stars that they’d be friends forever.

He meets Yamazaki’s eyes for just a moment and his thoughts crash to a halt.  Somehow Yamazaki knows.

“Okay, so, now that we’ve covered some basics I am going to leave you two be for a bit so you can talk.  Then when I get back we’ll go over some starting techniques and if you’re still interested in continuing we’ll set up a time for you to come in again.”  The counselor smiles and leaves them alone.

After a moment Yamazaki speaks up.  “The reason you won’t do it with Tachibana,” he says quietly.  

Haru tenses, he can feel the churning in his stomach threatening to spill over.  “Don’t,” he bites out, eyes flickering to Yamazaki.

“Fine.”

Ten long minutes later she comes back in and asks if they’d like to continue.  Asks the question like they’d spent the time chatting with each other, weighing the pros and cons, instead of glaring at separate walls and doing their best to pretend the other didn’t exist.

She has them face each other.  Talks about how forming a bond is a two way thing.  They both have to be willing, blah, blah blah.

She tells them to hold hands and Haru blinks up at Yamazaki.

“Interlocking fingers, palms together, one person resting their hand in the other’s.  Whatever works best for you.  This helps you center yourselves and makes it easier to reach out to the other person.  Later you can move on to more casual touches but to start you want a firm grounding point.  Connecting to each other is a little like tying a rope between the two souls.”

Yamazaki rests his hands palms up on his knees and raises an eyebrow at him.  Challenging him with a smirk when Haru doesn’t move.

_ Chicken? _  That smirk asks and Haru narrows his eyes.

_ Not a chance _ .  Is the clear answer when he drops the backs of his hands onto Yamazaki’s.  There’s a flicker of something when Yamazaki moves his hands and wraps his fingers around Haru’s wrists.  Something slithering and competitive and surely far too  _ nostalgic  _ to be a feeling he’s getting from Yamazaki.

Then it’s gone and it’s just Yamazaki’s fingers warm on his wrists and the counselor talking.

 

All he wants to do is go home and ignore the way that Yamazaki’s knowing gaze sent ripples through him.  So of course they run into Rin on the way to the station.  He’s in town a week earlier than expected and Haru glances around when Rin hits his shoulder lightly expecting to see Makoto popping up as well.  Because what would a long day be without trying to evade his best friend’s worried gaze?  There’s no Makoto in sight and luckily Rin’s too wrapped up in his determination to hang out with Haru and Yamazaki and “all the others” before he has to leave again that he believes their thin excuses for being in the same place together.  He shrugs under Rin’s scrutinizing gaze and hunches further into his jacket.

Makoto texts him that night about getting together with Rin and Yamazaki but he sets his phone on his desk and ignores it through another restless night.  He fills half a sketchbook before the sun rises and he finally replies.

**_ dont feel good.  maybe next time. _ **

It’s not a lie.  Not entirely.  He doesn’t feel good but that’s kind of a constant state these days.  A lack of sleep and his almost constant mild levels of nausea make it pretty miserable to do much of anything some days.

_ Ok.  Rin was really looking forward to seeing you.   _

_ Think you’d be okay with us stopping by for a bit after the movie? _

**_ whatever you want _ **

He lays in bed, eyes staring blankly at the wall of his bedroom, until he gets a text from Makoto late that afternoon saying the movie was over and they were on their way.  By the time they get to his apartment he’s starting to wish he had just said no to Makoto.  It’s not that he doesn’t want to spend time with them.

But it hurts.

Knowing that they’re making special trips just for him.  Just because he’s like this.  Haru’s never been much of a “people person” and he doesn’t like people making extra effort just for him.  It makes him feel uncomfortable.  Like he’s supposed to be indebted to them when they do.

Even if it’s two of his closest friends.

“Yo, Haru!”  Rin slings an arm over his shoulder and drops onto the ground next to him, barely missing cracking his knees on Haru’s low table.  Haru shuts his sketchbook and carefully sets it on the top of a stack of magazines he has nearby.  “We brought soup since Makoto said you weren’t feeling well and probably weren’t feeling up to cooking.”

Makoto peeks his head in and holds a small bag up with a nod to the kitchen.  Haru nods and drops his eyes to the table before sliding them up to watch Rin as he starts talking about the movie they had seen.

Rin is… vibrant.  He’s a fire that Haru has often felt the urge to reach out and touch, even though he knows he’ll just get burned by the passion Rin has for life.  He’s the sun burning bright in the sky and it hurts Haru to look directly at him sometimes.  Especially times like now when he’s simply drifting here, nausea roiling in his gut and climbing the back of his throat, and Rin laughs as he tells how Makoto had jumped in surprise at something during the movie and made Rin spill half his popcorn into Yamazaki’s lap.  His eyes drift to the kitchen and he can see Makoto’s embarrassment in the set of his shoulders and the reddening of his ears.

Makoto brings them each a bowl of soup and settles down across from Haru with a smile.

“Feeling any better than this morning?”

Haru shrugs and dutifully swallows a couple spoonfuls of soup.  He could make much better himself if he felt like it but it wasn’t bad for something they picked up on the way over.  They fill his apartment with chatter.  Rin and Makoto going back and forth and Haru adding a word here and there but mostly silent.  His soup gets cold before he’s even halfway through it and he sets it off to the side and watches the other two.

Makoto’s laughing softly at something Rin said and Haru feels his stomach clenching around what little soup is in it.  This is what Makoto deserves from a soulbond, in a soulmate.  Laughter.  Good cheer.  Happiness.  The chance for happily ever after that he wants.

Not the pain and sadness and rough waters that is guaranteed with Haru.

Rin’s sharing a story about one of his teammates and Haru thinks he manages to give small smiles in the right places but his mind is elsewhere.

Yamazaki doesn’t deserve the pain and roughness of Haru’s problems any more than Makoto does but, to Haru, he feels more prepared for them.  Makoto may be his best friend and while Haru knows he’s tougher than people might think he’s far too close for this it to end well when Haru inevitably doesn’t make it.  Yamazaki, at least, isn’t attached to Haru.  He knows, objectively, that losing your soulmate, having your soulbond severed by death, will hurt no matter what.

That is, of course, assuming they can even bond in the first place.  Even if they can’t at least Haru will be spending his last months with someone who doesn’t look at him with pity or sorrow welling up in their eyes.

“We offered to let Sousuke come with,” Rin says.  He nudges Haru’s elbow with his own when he realizes he isn’t listening. “Earth to Haru.”  He blinks and frowns at Rin.  “I said we offered to let Sousuke come with us.  But he said if you weren’t feeling good he was sure he was the last person you’d want to see.”  Haru frowns even more.  He catches a fond look on Makoto’s face that makes him realize he looks like he’s pouting and he huffs before turning his attention to his sketchbook still sitting off to the side.  “I thought you guys would be getting along better after the last couple years.”  Now Rin’s the one pouting.

“We get along fine.”

Before long they leave and Haru is once again left alone in his too quiet apartment.


	4. You Don't Have to Be Fragile to Break

Haru honestly can’t remember the last time he swam.

Or talked to anyone; other than sending a couple texts to Makoto.

Or ate… anything.

Or slept more than a few hours.

He barely even knows what day it is.

He knows that his hand is cramped.  His fingers are stiff and covered in graphite, smears of it running down his wrist, silvery and metallic under the lamplight.

An alarm is going off somewhere in the kitchen and he stares at the ceiling of his bedroom for a few minutes before rolling off the bed and shuffling towards the sound.  He remembers answering one of Makoto’s texts, he thinks it was yesterday - he tries to answer them at least twice a week or he’ll have Makoto worried and knocking on his door - and plugging the phone into the charger in the kitchen because the last time he had let his phone die Makoto had shown up in a panic with Rei and Nagisa pounding at his door and he’d really rather not experience that again.

** soul appt @ 3 **

Haru blinks at the message on his screen as he shuts off the alarm.  Apparently it’s been two weeks already since the last appointment.  He tries to think back.  Has it really been two weeks since he had seen Yamazaki?  Obviously it has since the appointment is today but he can’t quite get ahold of where the last two weeks has gone.  Sometimes it feels like his quiet apartment eats away his days along with his energy.

It’s only one and it only takes about a half hour to get there, and another twenty minutes to get to the station.  Which means he has almost an hour to almost talk himself out of going to the appointment.

He gives himself half a dozen random reasons not to go.

The reason he decides to go anyway is because he remembers that Yamazaki is taking time out of his own schedule to do this.

And because that hollowness inside him feels a little less frightening when he thinks that maybe,  maybe , there’s a tiny chance that he can swim with his friends again.

 

Haru is leaning against the outside of the counselor’s office when he hears footsteps and drops his eyes from the cloudy skies to the stormy expression on Yamazaki’s face.  Yamazaki doesn’t say anything, simply takes a deep breath and leads the way into the office.

It’s a lot like the first session.  Kind of pointless.  A lot of the counselor talking about how to try and connect to each other and the history of and research that has been done in regards to soulbonds.  Haru sitting across from Yamazaki with his hands palms up on Yamazaki’s own.  They don’t speak to each other and something starts to creep around in Haru’s stomach.  An uneasy snake coiling tight under his skin.

The counselor tells them before they leave that they don’t have to come back.  Something about most people only needing her for the initial process and how she feels they will be more comfortable doing this in their own spaces but they are free to call her if they need any more help.  Haru’s slightly relieved because he’s honestly not sure he would be able to drag himself out for another session like this.

They don’t talk on their way to the station.  Haru doesn’t know what to say.  He’s never been much for talking and he’s not good in situations like this.  Situations where he knows he should probably say something but he’s not sure what or even why he feels like he should.  The tense set of Yamazaki’s shoulders, like he’s waiting for Haru to say something so he can snap, doesn’t help settle his stomach at all.

He watches Yamazaki on the ride towards their stops.  He’s upset, that much would be obvious to anyone, but Haru isn’t sure if he’s specifically upset with him or maybe just tired in general.  He looks tired.  Like he’s had a few too many late nights and early mornings.  Like he has things he needs to say to someone but doesn’t have the right person to say them to.

They near Yamazaki’s stop and Haru tenses.  Fear sneaks under his skin.  A snake slithering, coiling, wrapping through his veins.  His heart feels heavy, each beat pulsing through him like he’s about to burst and as they slow he feels almost dizzy.  Yamazaki stands and heads for the doors and Haru’s breath quickens.  He’s on his feet and following Yamazaki before he can think about it, somehow sure that if he doesn’t this will be the end of everything.  No more chances.  No more maybes.

 

Yamazaki unlocks his door and lets Haru follow him inside.

“Am I suddenly worthy of your presence now?”  The words don’t sting but the tone does.  It’s supposed to, Haru thinks as he slips out of his shoes and closes the door when Yamazaki flops onto his couch.  He settles onto the floor in front of the couch and curls his arms around his knees, dropping his head backwards onto the cushion near Yamazaki’s feet.  He’s pretty sure Yamazaki won’t kick him in the head.  

After awhile he hears Yamazaki take a deep breath and shift so he can see Haru.  “The reason you refused to do the bond with Tachibana.”  Yamazaki pauses when Haru turns to glare at him but he’s not backing off.  Not giving up this time.  Haru kind of wishes he’d just kick him in the head instead.  “It’s because you don’t want to risk it not working right?  You don’t want him to wind up not being able to bond when he does find someone someday if it doesn’t work for you.”

That snake is crushing his lungs and he tries to take a breath.  It’s shaky and nowhere near enough to calm him and he takes another before speaking softly. 

“When- if it doesn’t work I don’t want him to be upset that his best friend is dead and feel guilty over the bond not helping.  Makoto would think that it was all his fault he couldn’t save me and on top of that he wouldn’t be able to bond with anyone ever again.  I can’t let him go through that.  It wouldn’t be fair to let him experience something he wants so much for such a short time.  And not even experience it properly.  He means a lot to me but I’m not in love with Makoto.”

Yamazaki says something about Makoto and Rin having similar ideas about soulmates and he nods in agreement, mind back with Makoto laughing and smiling and teasing Rin in Haru’s apartment.  He’s still sure that this was the right course.  If anyone deserved the chance to bond with the person they were in love with it was Makoto.  Yamazaki’s gaze suddenly turns intense and Haru stiffens when he pushes himself up onto his elbow.

“Wait.  How long do you have?”

There it was.  The question even his parents avoided thinking about.  He glances over but can’t meet Yamazaki’s eyes.  Not when it hurts this much right now.  Not when his stomach is dropping out and his heartbeat is thrumming in his ears.  “Why?  Wondering how long you’ll be stuck with me if it doesn’t work?”  He pushes away, distancing himself with harsh words on instinct.  Yamazaki growls and him and leans a little closer, not afraid of cutting himself on Haru’s sharpness.

“Nanase.  Just answer me.”

“Don’t worry.  You’ll only be stuck with me three?  Maybe four months.”

There.  He said it.  He told someone.  Now someone else finally knew.

The air feels heavy.  He feels too big for his skin.  Like he’s a balloon stretched tight with too much air.

“Fuck.  You, uh.  Do they know?”

“They know it’s getting closer but not how close.”

“And until I made my offer you, what?  Were just going to let yourself be dead within the year?”  Haru shrugs.  Because honestly what did it matter what he was going to do?  He hadn’t seen any other options available.  Not until Yamazaki dropped his offer into Haru’s lap like a stone.  “Don’t just shrug.  Answer me.”  It was all Yamazaki’s fault.  These sudden ripples in his life.  His ribs wouldn’t feel so tight if he didn’t have his heart thudding behind them, working itself hard in an attempt to remind him he’s alive.  That he has a chance again.  All because of Yamazaki’s stupid “why not” from all those months ago.  “You were content to just lay there and die?”

Haru lets out a bitter laugh and stands.  Because he had been.  He had been content to just let his death come.  And now… He doesn’t need to explain himself, explain his choices, to anyone, let alone Yamazaki fucking Sousuke.

“Are we high schoolers again?  What’s next?  A lecture about all my wasted potential?  Telling me not to hold my friends back?  Well guess what, Yamazaki.  It’s hard to care about much when your family barely knows you exist anymore, your friends treat you like glass, and you find out when you’re nineteen that you’re going to be dead before you’re twenty-one.  All I wanted was to be ordinary again not dead!  So excuse me for not wanting to get out of bed most mornings.”

Haru can feel the anger bubbling up, filling every last inch of him, as he takes a shuddering breath and meets Yamazaki’s eyes.  He feels jittery, off-balance.  A little like he does after swimming too hard in the hot sun.  Like he’s being ripped open for Yamazaki to inspect.

He blinks a few times and clenches his jaw, trying to collect all his thoughts and put a stopper in them.

“Are you done?”

“What if I’m not?”  Haru snaps, clenching his fingers into fists as he wavers between the urge to snap at Yamazaki and the urge to keep silent.

Haru feels something inside him crack and splinter as Yamazaki sits up slowly.  “Then keep yelling at me.”

 

He does.

His thoughts trickling out at first, like water seeping from a cracked vase but soon the vase shatters, words spilling from his lips.  Sharp shards of glass hidden in the water, slicing through the air between them.

He tells Yamazaki everything.

How his parents, always distant, have barely acknowledged he’s even still alive.  Honestly if it wasn’t for the increase in his bank account every month he wouldn’t even know they still existed.  He hasn’t actually heard from them in months.  Not since even before Yamazaki had made his offer.

His shoulders tense and his words drip out with a venom that he’s not used to tasting on his tongue.  It’s bitter and foul but he keeps telling things to Yamazaki.

How his friends have slowly drifted away from him.  How when they do hang out they always seem cautious.  Like they’re watching him, waiting for something to happen.  Treating him like he’s something fragile that’s going to crumble if they say the wrong thing or bump into him too hard or hovering over him like he’s a child who needs watched after.

He remembers the look on Makoto’s face under those stars, those fireworks.  Remembers the feeling of Makoto’s fingers slipping off of his wrist and his words start to tremble.  His breath is catching at the end of each sentence.  He keeps talking about everything.

How he can’t sleep.  How he can’t swim.  How drawing only fills so much of the quiet in his head.  How nothing helps anymore.  How everything is being taken away from him.

How no one even acknowledges it.

“It’s like,” his voice cracks and his breath catches, “like they think that if we don’t talk about it, it won’t happen.”  He takes a shuddering breath as Yamazaki stands.  “But it will.”

Yamazaki heads down the hall and leaves him.  For a moment Haru has the urge to reach out and drag him back.  Insist he stay.  His fingers clench into fists as he tries to get his shaky breathing under control.  The deeper his breaths get the more exhausted he feels.

He’s so drained, eyes drooping, that when Yamazaki comes back with the quilt he had given Haru the last time he was here he simply takes it and drops to the couch.  Curling up with the quilt wrapped around him he’s reminded, for a moment, of falling asleep with his grandmother next to him in the sunlight on the porch.  He huffs out an irritated breath - because thoughts of his grandmother never get him anywhere - and falls asleep to the sounds of Yamazaki making himself supper.

 

Yamazaki’s voice wakes him up the next afternoon, “I’ll be gone most of the day.  There’s food around if you’re hungry.  I don’t plan on being back until after my shift tonight,” and he looks around blearily at the living room when the door shuts.

He’s never been alone in Yamazaki’s apartment before.  It’s quiet.  But not the overwhelming quiet of his own apartment.  Yamazaki’s apartment is lived-in.  Messily comfortable, if that’s even a thing.  Haru’s been left to his own devices enough times while Yamazaki does homework or naps that he’s poked through most of the space.  There was almost always a dish or two on the counter or in the sink.  Notes stuck to the fridge and corkboard near the door.  Magazines tossed onto the endtables.  Sweatshirts tossed on the couch or over the back of a kitchen chair.

Thoughts from that first time that he had come to Yamazaki’s apartment come back, little sneaky kittens that snuggle under the quilt and curl up against his chest.  Claws pricking into his heart.  Smothering him.

He shoves the quilt off and stumbles into the kitchen for a glass of water.  The thoughts follow after him, little legs hurrying to keep up as he downs one glass and then another.  Determined to ignore the pinpricks of those thoughts digging in.

That first time he had been here and left alone the quiet had soothed him.  Reminded him of the Tachibana household with it’s quiet, lived-in warmth.  Made him wonder if this - so different from his own empty apartment - was what “home” was supposed to feel like.

He leaves the glass on the counter and flops back onto the couch, suddenly exhausted again.

 

The next day Haru feels functional enough to at least open his eyes when Yamazaki talks to him and vaguely acknowledge it when he talks.  Despite the nausea he wakes up with he actually makes himself a sandwich and finish it all that evening while Yamazaki is at work and cleans up the dishes in the kitchen afterwards.  Not out of any sense of responsibility or anything.  It’s something to do that isn’t sleeping on the couch or staring blankly at the wall.  Which he supposes is a sign of improvement or something.

It helps, for some reason, that Yamazaki is there but isn’t.  He acknowledges Haru, accepts that he’s around, but he doesn’t push him any further.  Doesn’t insist they talk about it.  But Haru knows that Yamazaki listened to him.  That he heard every word that Haru said and probably some Haru didn’t.

It also helps that Yamazaki hasn’t looked at him any differently this entire time.

 

Haru’s slept more in the last two days than he probably had in the last week.  He’s still on Yamazaki’s couch, wrapped in the quilt that keeps reminding him of his grandmother when he least expects it.  It’s apparently Yamazaki’s day off and Haru half watches him moving around his apartment.  He does some cleaning.  Dusting.  Laundry.  Haru knows he’s cleaning but doesn’t really focus in on anything.  Just lets the sounds wash over him.

He’s zoning out enough that it actually takes him a couple of minutes to fully understand what Yamazaki says when he finally speaks that evening.

“Rin I can understand.  But since when does Tachibana text me?”

Haru tilts his head and listens to Yamazaki’s phone buzzing a few times and tries to decide if he wants to bother with the conversation at all.  The phone goes silent and Yamazaki starts cleaning up the kitchen.

“I wonder if I accidentally offended Tachibana,” Yamazaki mutters.  Haru isn’t sure if he’s actually expecting a response from him or not.  “Is it even possible to actually offend him?”

The faucet starts running and Haru sighs.  “I don’t think it is.”  He answers quietly.  Yamazaki glances back as he sits up and tugs the quilt around his shoulders.  The phone buzzes again.  “See?”

Yamazaki says something and Haru shakes his head, intent on dropping back onto the couch.  His stomach growls loudly and he freezes as Yamazaki laughs.  A light blush creeps across his cheeks.

“You can eat some of my food but I am not cooking for you.”

“I wouldn’t trust you to anyway.”

Haru leaves the quilt on the couch and drags himself into the kitchen to cook something for himself.  He’s still tired but he at least feels mostly functional now.

Yamazaki is on the couch when Haru comes back towards it and he stops when Yamazaki points at him.

“If you want back on this couch you need to bathe.  I know it’s been almost three days since you last met more than a glass of water unless you’ve been sneaking back to your apartment when I’ve been out.”

He narrows his eyes and stares at Yamazaki.  Going back to his apartment is probably a good idea.  He’s sure he probably has countless missed texts and calls from Makoto and Rin.  He wonders what, if anything, Yamazaki has told them.  They had agreed that it was Haru’s decision when to tell the others about what was going on.  But he’s sure Yamazaki has been getting texts from Rin and he knows Makoto is obviously texting him about something.

 

Sure enough there are ton of messages from Makoto and Rin both.  He deletes them all without reading them and sends a single text back to both of them.

**_ had a bad few days.  needed some time.  stayed in bed & my phone died.  come by. _ **

Soaking in the tub feels amazing and he refills the tub with warm water twice before finally crawling out and pulling on a pair of pajama pants.  Toweling his hair dry he sends a message to Rin.

**_ I’m not some lost kid who needs babying.  stop acting like I am please. _ **


	5. It's A Nightmare Being Next to You

When Makoto comes into the bathroom the next morning and sighs fondly at him Haru feels truly at ease for the first time in a long time.  When Makoto scolds him, calls him Haru-chan, and holds out his hand something that he didn’t even realize had coiled in his chest loosened and he took Makoto’s had with a long-suffering sigh that couldn’t really hide his small smile.

“Did you want to check out the aquarium today?  I heard they have some new tropical fish in.”  Haru is cooking himself some mackerel for breakfast and Makoto is chattering away about the new exhibits at the aquarium and Haru feels okay.  He feels normal.  “Rin’s been worried that he hasn’t been able to talk to or spend much time with Yamazaki-kun lately.  And Yamazaki-kun really helped me when he talked to me yesterday so I was hoping we could stop by his place so I could thank him in person from both of us.”

“Rin worries too much about Yamazaki.”

“Everyone worries about their friends, Haru.”

“Rin just wants us to do his dirty work and babysit Yamazaki until he can see him again.”

“Haru!”  A small smile slips across his lips as he chews his last bite.  Makoto sighs and shakes his head.  “You never really change do you?”

 

It’s refreshing.  Having Makoto scold him for things and treat him like he always used to.  Like Haru was just Haru - not the dying friend - and it puts him in a good mood all day.  Even Makoto inviting Yamazaki to the aquarium with them doesn’t put a damper on his mood.  He spends most of the time sketching the various fish and sharks he sees, easily ignoring the other people as he finds benches and decent vantage points through the exhibits.  It’s nice to fill his sketchbook with something that isn’t part of a dream or nightmare.

He glances back at one point and sees Makoto and Yamazaki on a bench talking and then Yamazaki says something and starts laughing at Makoto’s reaction and this time it doesn’t hurt seeing Yamazaki interacting with Haru’s friends.  It doesn’t make Haru feel hollow or like he was missing chances with his friends.

Makoto and Yamazaki join him at the bench and he frowns a little when Yamazaki leans over him, shadow covering his sketchbook, and taps one of the drawings.

“That one reminds me a little bit of Momo.”  Makoto stays a little further back but glances curiously over Haru’s shoulders at the sketches.

“They all look really good, Haru.”

He snaps his sketchbook shut and stands with a huff.

“Let’s go.”

 

Over the next three weeks he’s at Yamazaki’s place seven times to work on soulbonding stuff.  They sit and rest their hands together, sometimes holding each other’s wrists, sometimes just sitting side by side and brushing their hands together, but nothing ever really seems to happen.  They try the centering techniques and calming techniques but after an hour or so they both get frustrated and fidgety so they call it a day.  Sometimes Haru pokes through Yamazaki’s kitchen for food before settling on the couch and sketching or reading.  Sometimes Yamazaki leaves him on the couch when he heads to work.

This is the eighth time Haru’s stopped by and once they got restless enough to quit the soulbonding for the day he pulled out his sketchbook and curled up on the end of the couch, quilt spread across his lap, as Yamazaki changes into sweatpants.

“You know we don’t always have to do this here.”  Nanase glances up when Yamazaki settles onto his end of the couch.  “If you’d rather try the bonding thing at your place we can.”  

“It’s fine here.  I don’t really like it at my apartment much these days.  It just doesn’t feel right there.”  His eyes drop back to his sketchbook; he’d really rather not talk about this.  About the fact he likes Yamazaki’s apartment more than his own.  About the fact that there are days he considers just staying at Yamazaki’s and never going back to his own apartment.

“Okay.  Suit yourself.”  Yamazaki yawns and flops onto his side, head almost brushing Haru’s blanketed feet as he picks up the remote and turns the tv on to a random action movie.  “Just thought you might be more at ease there or something.”

Haru doesn’t bother replying.  Yamazaki knows him well enough now to drop it.

 

 

Featureless faces lean over him, blank and cold in the dim light, and he feels the familiar weight of water against his back.  He’s adrift, rising and falling with each swell, and he tries to look past the faces and focus on the sky beyond.  But the starry night turns black, ink seeping down to the horizon and spreading along the water to his outstretched limbs.  His shoulder throbs as he reaches out for a hand that never comes.  

He’s never had this dream but it feels so familiar somehow.  He’s experienced it hundreds of times but he knows he’s never had it before either.  But knows he hates it.  Hates it with a passion born from countless repetitions of the same scenes.  Cold tendrils creep around him and drag him under in a way that’s terrifying because the water would never hurt him, yet it’s trying to.  Inky blackness seeps across his vision and turns his mind blurry.  His heart is beating wildly out of his chest as he tries to learn how to breathe through the murky depths of this nightmare.

Bright light blinds him, like camera flashes in the dark, and he stands, blinking away tears, back in a dream that’s all too familiar.  Voices blare at him from every side and he brings shaky hands up to block out the noise.  It’s too much.  A million puppets with blank eyes chattering around him.  Eyes watching him, judging, demanding, waiting for the moment he drops his guard again so they can swoop in and yank him inside out.

Pillars of stone rise up around him and he watches, frozen, as his friends sit atop them and are raised further and further from his grasp.  They have no faces but he can feel the pull of familiarity and comfort stretching thin as the pillars climb higher and higher.  Motion out of the corner of his eye catches his attention and he and turns to gaze blearily at his reflection.  His own lifeless eyes stare back at him and he stumbles backwards, fingers scrabbling to grip the air and coming up empty.

Haru mutters and gasps as he comes out of the dream.  Sweat runs down his neck as his head swims and his stomach twists at the familiar pull of the nightmare creeping up his spine.

“What time is it?”  Yamazaki grumbles from the floor.  If he wasn’t feeling so off-balance Haru would probably find amusement in the fact that Yamazaki obviously fell off the couch at some point during the night.

Haru shifts slowly, carefully, biting back the bile in his throat, and squints at the clock.  “It’s three-thirty something.”

“In the morning?”

“Unless we slept for over eighteen hours and it gets dark at three in the afternoon now, yes.”  He grits out between clenched teeth, fingers digging into the thick sweatshirt across Yamazaki’s chest.

Something crackles through his veins and he shoves up from the couch, stumbling past Yamazaki and to the bathroom down the hall.  He fumbles for the light switch as the door shuts behind him.

The air is humming, electricity thrumming under his skin.  It itches and snaps and he takes a deep breath, trying to beat down the panic rising in his chest.  His heart feels like it’s beating a hundred times a second and his shoulder throbs; a phantom pain that’s not even his, has never been his.

His stomach lurches again as realization sets in and he groans.

“Nanase?”

He pushes himself to his feet and everything around him goes quiet, air still and silent, waiting for the next strike of lightning.  The door opens and he meets Yamazaki’s eyes in the mirror.  Haru’s eyes widen and his knees hit the tile floor as he loses what little he had eaten earlier that night.

He can feel Yamazaki’s uncertainty crackling between them, electricity charging the air, and he isn’t sure if he wants him to go away because he’s Yamazaki or stay because Haru is just so tired going through this alone.

Another wave of nausea hits him and he braces himself to lose whatever is left in his stomach as Yamazaki settles carefully onto the floor next to him.  The warmth radiating from him is a comfort and when Haru finally turns to look at him he takes the tissues Yamazaki holds out without complaint.  He still scowls when Yamazaki helps him to his feet though, arm wrapped around his waist like he needs the support.  He scowls harder when his knees wobble and he realizes he kind of does need it.

“Well, Sunshine,” Yamazaki says, arm snug around Haru’s waist, “looks like we’re soulmates now.”

Yet another bout of nausea rips through him, riding on a crackle of energy that Haru is not ready to handle, may never be ready to handle, and he pulls away and sinks to his knees again.


	6. The Future is Yours... Again

Haru settles his chin on his arm and frowns down at his sketchbook.  The ghost pain in his shoulder is irritating but it’s nothing compared to what he’s been dealing with the last year.  But he keeps finding himself sitting with his left hand holding his right shoulder while he sketches, jaw resting on his wrist as he fills the page with lines, shading and smudging with his fingers.  

 

That first day once Haru’s stomach settled they discovered that being more than a few feet from each other left them both shaky with pits of worry in their stomachs and they wound up spending the day curled together on the couch, dozing and watching movies.

The second day Haru had borrowed some clothes from Yamazaki so they could wash his because the thought of having to drag themselves all the way to Haru’s apartment seemed far too much effort and just doing some laundry wound up being more exhausting than expected.

Now Yamazaki is stretched out on the couch easily taking up whatever space Haru isn’t as he flips through the channels on his tv, feet tucked under the quilt covering Haru’s lap, toes pressing into Haru’s ankles.  It’s been a strange three days since their bond had settled in.

 

“How long has it been this bad?” 

Haru can feel the bond between them, heavy like the air just before a storm breaks.  He shrugs, barely even glancing up from his sketchbook.  When you live with it everyday - the bone deep aches, the restlessness, the exhaustion - you kind of stop paying attention to it and just learn to function around it.  “I don’t really know.”

“The nausea?”

“A few months.”

“Everyday?”

“More or less.”

“The nightmares?”

He keeps his eyes on his sketchbook, focused on turning the white paper into an inky darkness with just a pencil.  Yamazaki shifts to get up and Haru sighs.

“I had a few back in high school.”  He doesn’t have to explain when.  They all had some crappy moments back then, all at the same time.  It’s probably lucky they all made it out as relatively unscathed as they did.  “Maybe one or two right after I found out.  Then they started again five or six months ago.  Almost every night now.”

He can feel Yamazaki’s eyes on him and he wants to tell him to stop.  To back off.  He’s too close, too much, too far under Haru’s skin.  The silence of his apartment is too much but the noise of Yamazaki’s closeness is too much as well.  Licks of electricity buzz between them and he can feel Yamazaki’s curiosity crackling, ready to strike.

Even with the pain he knows Yamazaki has to be feeling because of the bond, even with the knowledge of just how screwed up Haru’s life has been the couple years, even with how sharp Haru is towards him, there’s no pity.  There’s not a hint of sadness when their eyes meet.

Haru flinches mentally at the sensation that he’s being cracked open and sighs irritably as he raises his eyes to glare at Yamazaki - the  what the hell do you want now in that look would be obvious even to someone who doesn’t know Haru.  Yamazaki grins - his gaze is too teasing, too close, too  fond for Haru to stand - and shakes his head in reply before getting up and heading into the kitchen.

He needs more space.  Needs Yamazaki out of his head, out of his skin.  Needs him to be warier of Haru.

“What about you?”  Haru asks quietly when Yamazaki settles back onto the couch with a tired sigh.

“What about me, what?”

Haru tucks his pencil behind his ear and flips his sketchbook around.  Featureless figures rise out of inky water and hover over a pale figure stretching their arm up to where the starry sky turns black and seeps into the horizon.

Yamazaki’s breath catches when he takes in the scene.  

“What about  _ your _ nightmares?” Haru presses.  He doesn’t feel smug about it, he hadn’t expected to.

Their bond crackles, lightning snapping between them.  Haru watches Yamazaki’s eyelids flutter as he rubs distractedly at his shoulder.

He finally tears his eye up from the sketchbook and levels Haru with a glare.  “Fuck you, Nanase.”

“No thank you.”

He stands and leaves without another word.  The thrumming current between them down to a more manageable low hum.

 

In all honesty he didn’t expect it to work at all.

But the days turn to weeks and then months and as the time he had been given runs out and he keeps living Haru eyes the calendar warily, as if someone is playing a trick on him.

He’s not sleeping better but he does sleep more.  He still wakes up from nightmares more often than not but he falls asleep again after them instead of staying up all night.  He still aches everyday.  Still wakes up nauseous and weary.  But it’s a constant, manageable level.

Time passes and he grows used to the buzz of electricity surrounding him.  It’s strange.  Most of the time it actually feels a little like a barrier against the world.  Like he has one more defense for everything to get through before he has to face it head on.  

He and Yamazaki spend more time together than he ever would have imagined they would but it’s still not a lot.  The occasional night at one apartment or the other - honestly he prefers Yamazaki’s place to his own - or time at the library.  They see enough of each other to maintain the balance.  To keep them both feeling content enough with the bond without overwhelming each other.

Even with that space between them sometimes it’s too strong, too much, and he feels like he needs to dig under his skin and draw that humming charge out of him.

 

He’s not entirely sure what sets him off.  If it’s the text messages from Makoto asking how he’s doing and if he wants to meet up soon.  The single message from his parents inquiring about his health.  The messages from Rin and Nagisa and Rei.  The fact that the silence in his apartment is starting to eat away at him again as his days stretch out.

It suddenly hits him that what he’s been doing until now has simply been filling up time until he wasn’t here anymore.  No plans.  No future.  No dreams or hopes or wishes.  Just drawing after drawing to pass the time until he stopped.  Until he died.

He glances around the room and freezes when he spots the calendar on his wall.  It hasn’t been flipped in months, since sometime before they went to the counselor the first time, and he swallows hard at the panic that is suddenly trying to crawl up his throat.

It hits him that he was supposed to be dead right now.

He’s off the floor and out the door in a minute.  The key to Yamazaki’s apartment he gave him back while they were still trying to bond was shoved in his jacket pocket and he ran his fingers over it as he hurried towards the station.

He needed to be somewhere that wasn’t his apartment.  Somewhere he wasn’t surrounded by the silent guilt of his past.  Somewhere he wasn’t being smothered by his sudden future spreading out ahead of him.

He holds it together well enough until he gets to Yamazaki’s door.  His hands are shaking when he tries to unlock the door and it takes three tries before he sinks the key home and shoves the door open.  He kicks his shoes off and drops his keys on the end table when he gets inside and then stops.

His keys are sitting on one of his sketchbooks.  The sketchbooks that he never used to let people look at unless he was working on something in class and even then he rarely let people close enough to see.  A sketchbook that had he never would have left lying around before has been sitting here since the last time Haru had stopped by three or four days ago.  Shaky fingers slide the sketchbook out from under the keys and start flipping through pages.

Yamazaki’s voice fills his head.  “That whale looks like Tachibana.”  Haru remembers the night it stormed so bad the lights went out for nearly three hours and he had been drawing by candlelight, Yamazaki curled up on the other end of the couch with a book until he had gotten bored of it and started trying to sneak glances at Haru’s sketchbook.  Which he had, for whatever reason, had no problem allowing.  “Is that shark supposed to be Rin?”  Yamazaki’s hand, bigger than Haru’s, reaching past and tapping the page, smudging the pencil lines.  “Oh shit, sorry.”

He throws the sketchbook on the table again and hurries into the kitchen.  Maybe some water will help.  He nearly chokes on a drink of water, chest tight as he swallows it down, when Yamazaki’s voice fills his head yet again.  “If you keep showing up and making food in my kitchen with my groceries the least you could do is stop complaining about not having the spices you want.  Either that or tell me what you want so I can buy some and you can not bitch so much in the future.”

The future.

He has a future again.

He has time.  He can make plans.

He can dream again, if he wants.

A buzzing startles him from his thoughts - the sun had set while he was lost in his thoughts - and he pulls his phone from his pocket.  His stomach drops when he reads the message from Makoto.

_ Haru I’m free tomorrow night.  Would it be alright if I stopped by? _

Shit.  How was he going to explain this to Makoto?  He wasn’t supposed to be alive to even  have to explain it to anyone.

This was a mistake.  And it was all Yamazaki’s fault.  

This was a huge mistake and he should be dead right now.

His thoughts circle and circle in his mind, breath shallow and rapid as he paces through the dark apartment, rubbing at his temples and trying to force down the nausea that is roiling about and competing with his headache over which is making him more miserable.  How is he going to explain this?  What is he supposed to do now?  If he and Yamazaki start spending more time together will he get better?  Can he and Yamazaki even spend more time together without causing issues?  How do they explain  that to Rin and Makoto without explaining what they’ve done?

He’s alive.  He’s alive and it’s thanks to Yamazaki.  He’s alive and it’s Yamazaki’s fault.

The door opens and he’s there in a flash, lashing out and punching Yamazaki in the chest the moment Haru can see him backlit in the doorway.  He digs his fingers into Yamazaki’s shirt as electricity jolts through him, past him, surrounds him with a shield of energy.

“You could at least let me take my shoes off before assaulting me.” 

Yamazaki’s voice, as frustratingly level as usual, snaps him out of the worst of his panic and he takes a sharp breath and loosens his grip on his shirt.  He manages to step away without incident and watches as Yamazaki slips out of his jacket and shoes and pads over to the couch.

Yamazaki’s wallet and phone hit the end table and Haru faintly hears his keys shifting under his sketchbook.  When did he stop worrying about keeping his sketchbooks clean and safe and tucked away on shelves?

He hates this.  Hates feeling needy.  Hates feeling like he wants to be closer.  Like he wants to bury himself under Yamazaki’s skin the way Yamazaki has buried himself under Haru’s.

Yamazaki wraps strong fingers around Haru’s wrist and he doesn’t fight back as Yamazaki tugs him down on top of him.

 

The first thing that registers is how warm it is.  Haru hadn’t even felt cold until Yamazaki had pulled him down.  He sighs and relaxes, tucking his head against Yamazaki’s neck and clutching onto his shirt with one hand.  Yamazaki’s arm is warm and secure against Haru’s waist and for the first time since he looked at his calendar, maybe the first time since a lot longer ago, he feels okay.

The gentle buzz of electricity hums around him and he lets himself relax.  Lets himself feel safe.

“So,” Yamazaki’s voice is so quiet, so gentle that Haru feels like he should feel offended by it, “who peed in your pool?”

“I don’t know.”

“Know?”

“What to do.  I...  I never planned to be alive now.”  He can feel their bond crackle as Yamazaki’s breath catches and his arm tightens on Haru’s waist.  “And now I’m alive.  And we have this bond.  And I don’t,” he huffs in frustration, words have never been his strong point, “I don’t do people well and you’re right here under my skin.”  Haru’s not even sure he’s making the point he’s trying to make.  “And my brain gets stuck on that.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell where my feelings are and where yours bleed into them.  Then I get stuck again.  Because now I have choices to make.  It’s like high school all over.  I have a future again and I just don’t know what to do with any of it.”  Hell he’s not even sure what point he’s trying to make right now.  He just needs Yamazaki, needs someone, to understand.

“Okay,” Yamazaki murmurs and shifts them so Haru is settled more securely against the back of the couch.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.  Okay.  You have all that again and it’s understandable to be freaked out.”  Haru lets out a relieved breath.  Yamazaki understood.  Even with the jumbled mess of thoughts spilling out of him.  “What’s the rest of it?”  

Haru debates.  Does he want to share this?  How far does he want to get into this with Yamazaki?  It was his fault, after all.  His fault for offering this to Haru.  He was the one Haru was going to be stuck with, in some way or another, for the rest of their lives which was going to be a lot longer than Haru had anticipated up until now.  

“Makoto and Rin.”  The names come out in an almost sigh and he feels Yamazaki shiver under him.  “They’re going to be upset.”

Thoughts of Makoto’s disappointed eyes flicker in his mind but he pushes them away when Yamazaki speaks.

“Rin will explode for a bit.  But he’ll be more pissed at me than you.  I’m sure of it.”  Haru hums in agreement.  Haru is not looking forward to telling them.  Not at all.  But maybe it won’t be too bad.  Maybe they can still be okay after this.  “That all?”

“For now,” Haru yawns and snuggles down into the warmth even more, not intending to move from his spot.  If Yamazaki wanted to sleep somewhere else then too bad for him, he thinks as he hears Yamazaki’s phone buzzing on the end table.


	7. Little Talks

“What.  The actual.  Fuck?”

The sound of Rin’s voice is unmistakeable to Haru, even asleep, and his body instantly fights to react to it.  To rise to the challenge that is Matsuoka Rin.  Unfortunately his stomach seems to be the main contender in this fight and it flies up towards his throat even as he tries to smother it and curl even further into sleep.  It had been the first time in weeks he had slept straight through the night.

“Seriously.  What.  The.  Fuck.”  Haru isn’t sure if he hates Rin or his stomach more as he slides over Yamazaki’s body and plants his feet on the ground, hurrying down the hallway before he can even meet Rin’s eyes.  Or throw up on Yamazaki’s floor.

He’s just standing up on shaky legs when Yamazaki knocks on the door.

“Hey, Nanase,” he says quietly.  “Rin and I are gonna do breakfast.  You interested in joining?”

Haru cracks open the door with a scowl.  He’s not sure if the nausea is from thoughts of dealing with Rin right now or just the regular shit he’s been putting up with for a year now.  He’s frustrated and still tired and just so over all of this.

“No.”  He bites back the  dumbass he desperately wants to tack on.  Only because the pulses of electricity he can feel from Yamazaki make the pounding in his head lessen as Yamazaki leans against the door and watches him.

“Alright.  Do you want me to tell him the truth?”  Haru debates.  He had been hoping for a little more time to prepare.  A little more time to figure out what to say to them.  But if Yamazaki was willing to deal with Rin that was a relief.  He nods and shuts the door.

He hears Yamazaki and Rin leave, feels the soothing hum of their bond growing distant until it’s the barest buzzing in his veins, and sinks onto the closed toilet lid with a groan.

He really, really didn’t want to do this.

 

Haru stares down at his phone with irritation before he hits send and drops the phone onto the kitchen counter.

**_ come by tonight and we can talk. _ **

_ We do need to talk.  I’ll see you tonight. _

The silence of his own apartment searches for him here.  Hunts him down and slithers around him, venomous disquiet dripping on his skin as he makes himself some toast and shuffles through the apartment in an attempt to distract himself.

He rearranges Yamazaki’s bookshelf just for the hell of it; mixing up his textbooks and magazines into a random mismatch with no order.  He does the same with Yamazaki’s closet.  Just because he can.  He needs something to distract from the slight jitters running through him every now and then.  Little shocks and shivers that remind him a little of when Nagisa slipped him some super caffeinated energy drink infused coffee one day back in high school.  Logically he knows that it’s just the bond, just little spikes of Yamazaki’s emotions, but they send him back to high school in a flash and he finds himself standing in Yamazaki’s closet with one hanger in each hand and remembering the feel of that light shining inside him.  Back when everything was there and the world was finally opening up for him.

He drops the shirts on the floor, shuts the closet, and curls up on the couch with his sketchbook.  It’s safe here.  Familiar.  It doesn’t make him feel nostalgic and sad.

Haru can feel the tension in the bond growing as Yamazaki nears the apartment.  The twinges of frustration softened with edges of fondness.  It’s a common feeling when dealing with Rin.  Rin doesn’t see eye to eye with pretty much anyone about anything and he’s just as likely to bite at you as he is to draw you in when he disagrees with your thoughts.

Yamazaki drops onto the other end of the couch and runs a tired hand across his face.  Doubt and fear and worry inch through the bond, sending little sparks that catch at Haru’s attention, make him even more fidgety than he was, and draws his focus from his sketchbook - not that he had much focus anyway - and he tosses it onto the end table with a sigh.  He sprawls onto Yamazaki’s lap and buries his face in his stomach.  He should possibly be concerned at how content he feels when Yamazaki runs his fingers through Haru’s hair.  But he needs it right now.  Needs the comfort and contact.  Needs the feeling that they didn’t screw this choice up.  They both do, he thinks.

“I’m meeting Makoto at my apartment for supper,” he announces after a few minutes, frowning when Yamazaki stops moving his hand.  “He knows something is up.  I just don’t know how to tell him.”

“You’ll figure it out.  You guys are best friends after all.  He’s fluent in your freaky Nanase-non-speech telepathy thing you guys have.”

“You and Rin are best friends,” Haru points out with a pout that he hides against Yamazaki’s stomach.

“Rin and I aren’t you and Tachibana.”

They spend the day on the couch watching whatever is on tv and napping until Haru leaves late that afternoon.

He doesn’t want to go back to his apartment.  Not just because of the confrontation that’s waiting for him and not just because his apartment is a crappy shell of a place that really has no sense of anyone, or anything, living in it.

Makoto’s waiting outside the building when he gets back and Haru already can’t wait to get this over with and go home.  He pauses and Makoto tilts his head, hand raised in a wave.  When did he start thinking of Yamazaki’s apartment as home?

“Haru?”  Makoto’s voice is kind and concerned and it snaps Haru out of his thoughts like a bucket of cold water.

 

Silence between them isn’t new.  They talk as much with their eyes and gestures as they do with words sometimes.  They work together and around each other with a practiced motion that is instinctual sometimes.  Silence is comfortable.  Familiar.

This silence is different.  It’s rough and ungainly and scrapes at Haru.  Drains him and leaves him feeling like he’s made of shattered glass.

Haru meets Makoto’s eyes and takes a slow breath.  “I did a soulbond with Yamazaki.”

Makoto blinks at him once.  Twice.  Tilts his head like a puppy trying to understand a new command.

“What?”

“Yamazaki and I.  We’re bonded."

“I didn’t know you two felt that strongly about each other,” Makoto says cautiously after a few minutes.

“We didn’t.  Don’t.”  Haru shrugs.  “He offered.  No strings attached.  It helps us both.”

The hardest part of this, other than just telling Makoto, is treading the fine line between dropping the facts straight into Makoto’s lap and picking out the things that will make it easier on both of them.

“No strings attached?”

“No strong feelings in case we bonded but it didn’t help me.  But he still bonds with someone to help avoid future awkward ‘have you bonded yet’ questions.”  Haru stares at his hands for a moment, faint traces of pencil lead on the tips and he wonders if he wound up wiping some of it onto Yamazaki’s shirt or couch, before he meets Makoto’s eyes again.  Asking him to understand.  “No romance.  No ruining anyone’s lives.  No taking anyone’s future away.”

Makoto mulls this over, face scrunching in concentration.  Haru’s fingers twitch.  The urge to drag out a sketchbook and start filling pages is strong but this is Makoto and he needs to be here for this.  Needs to be focused on what’s right in front of him.  He needs Makoto to understand.  

He can’t lose him again.  He can’t lose his best friend.  He’s already done enough damage by not telling him sooner.

“Why?”

“Why what?”  Why Yamazaki and not him or Rin?  Why not tell them?

“Why now?”

He opens his mouth to respond and is hit with a wave of remorse and sadness.  Promises under stars and fireworks booming above them.  His vision goes watery and he blinks back the sudden tears.  “It was one last chance.  Friends forever for a little bit longer,” he whispers and wipes frustratedly at his eyes.

“Yamazaki?”  He can see the hurt in Makoto’s eyes.  The worry.  The confusion.

“He offered.  He’s not,” Haru lets out a frustrated huff, “he’s not you.  Not Rin.  He doesn’t think of bonding as the next chapter of happily ever after.  He wasn’t close.  If we didn’t bond or we bonded and it didn’t help it wouldn’t have hurt him as much as you.”  He’s begging Makoto to understand.  Even if he doesn’t approve or accept it.  As long as he understands that Haru didn’t want him to hurt him with this.  Even if he accidentally did anyway.  “It was too quiet,” he mutters and drops his chin onto the low table, “and I wanted to swim with you all again.”

He can feel something shift between them and Makoto settles his elbow on the table and drops his chin onto his hand, watching Haru.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Haru-chan,” Makoto murmurs, voice soft and kind and so familiar that Haru lets out a quiet laugh.

“Drop the -chan.”


	8. Why Not....

They’re not okay.  Not yet.  Makoto needs time.  Needs to process it.  Needs to come to terms that Haru kept something this big a secret with him.

There’s still a lot of tension between them all.  Rin comes back from Australia a few times but doesn’t go out of his way to visit either of them.  Makoto keeps his distance but he checks in on Haru a few times a month.  He talks to Yamazaki when he and Haru happen to be hanging out when he stops by.

It’s hard.  To be so close to your best friend but know you potentially screwed it all up so badly.

He spends more and more time with Yamazaki.  His nightmares come maybe once or twice a month now.  He still aches more days than not and the nausea is still there a lot.  But he can cook a meal every day and eat it.  He gets out of bed without too much debate of staying under the covers.

 

“So are we just going to move in together?”  Yamazaki asks as he reaches around Haru and grabs a plate from the cupboard.  “It makes sense seeing as how you practically live here most of the time anyway.”  Haru turns to the stove and checks his fish before glancing at Yamazaki and the plateful of rice and pork he was making for himself.  “I mean my couch isn’t  _ that _ comfortable to sleep on and it’s gotta suck to make the trip back to your apartment all the time.”

It was the third time in the last month that Yamazaki’s brought it up.  Haru doesn’t have any real objections to it.  He’s getting better but an actual recovery would need them to spend more time together.  Even if they weren’t in the same rooms at least in a shared apartment they would almost always be around each other.  The bond even stronger and able to help him connect to Yamazaki and heal.  However it worked.

Plus if Makoto and Rin finally forgive them it would be easier to get together in a larger, shared apartment.

“Why not,” Haru shrugs and reaches for his own plate.

_ Why not _ .  Two simple words that, once again, send ripples flying through the waters of his life like a stone.  Only this time he was the one tossing that stone.  He was the one setting things in motion.

It wasn’t a dream to chase.  But it was the start of a future.

Yamazaki raises an eyebrow when Haru suggests something close to the university but doesn’t say anything about it.  He simply helps search for something closer to the university but not too far away from his job at the athletic center.

 

Almost a year after that first time he had opened the door to Yamazaki at three in the morning Haru steps into his apartment at three in the morning with Yamazaki right behind him.  Yamazaki yawns and shuffles along behind Haru and they both barely remember to slip off their shoes at the door.  It had been a long day of moving most of Yamazaki’s things to their new apartment.  He’s not entirely sure if the aches and weariness he feels is all his own or if he’s catching pieces of Yamazaki’s as well through their bond.

He shuffles into the kitchen for a couple of bottles of water and hands off one to Yamazaki before heading for the bathroom for some pain relievers.  

“I hate you so much.  So, so much.”  Yamazaki gripes and Haru rolls his eyes  “I could be in my own bed right now.  Asleep.”  He digs the bottle out of a box of bathroom stuff and shakes himself out a couple before handing it over to Yamazaki.  As Yamazaki gets a couple and sticks the bottle on the empty shelf - because he’s an ass and wants to make Haru put it back in the box himself - Haru wonders how much of the bond Yamazaki can feel.  He knows that he doesn’t seem to be as perceptive of it as Yamazaki is.  But he has no idea if it’s because he has so much of his own stuff going on or if it’s just harder for him to reach out and feel the connection.

Yamazaki follows him into his room and drops face first onto the bed.

“That is my bed you know.”  Haru grabs some clothes and heads back to the bathroom to change.  Yamazaki is still face down when he gets back and crawls into bed himself.

“If I’m helping you move all your shit into the new apartment tomorrow, uh, today, whatever.  I want a decent night’s sleep.  You insisted on dragging me here tonight.  I’m sleeping on a bed.”

He had suggested Yamazaki just stay the night with him to make it easier since basically all of Yamazaki’s stuff was at the new apartment and it would save them both time if they both started out from Haru’s place the next morning.  But sure.  He insisted.  Whatever helped Yamazaki sleep at night.

“Don’t steal my blankets.”

“I’m sleeping on top of them.  I doubt I’ll steal them.”

 

His phone is ringing but he can’t even bring himself to care when he’s so warm and wrapped up tight in blankets.  Yamazaki pokes him and mutters something about the phone.  Whoever it was would most likely realize that they were calling Haru and that Haru rarely answered his phone.  

Eventually.

Besides Yamazaki is closer to it than he is anyway.

Yamazaki grunts in surprise as he rolls away and mutters something about sharing the bed as he shoves Haru away.

“‘s my bed,” Haru grumbles back and burrows deeper into the blankets.

“And it’s your phone.  But I don’t see you doing anything about that.”  Yamazaki rolls over Haru, barely missing elbowing him in the head, and grabs Haru’s phone.  “Who the hell needs to talk to you this badly at stupid o’clock in the morning?”

Haru doesn’t know and doesn’t care.  Haru would be happy if Yamazaki shut up and let him go back to sleep.  He can sleep through his phone ringing.  Sleeping through Yamazaki rolling around and grumbling in his bed is another story.

“Answer it and find out,” he snaps and debates if he could get away with pushing Yamazaki off the other side of the bed.  Probably not.  Yamazaki weighs a lot more than him.

“It’s Hazuki,” Yamazaki hisses and tugs at the blankets.  He obviously hits the speaker option because Nagisa’s voice fills the room and Haru sighs.  So much for sleeping.

“Haru-chan?  Did you just answer the call and put the phone on the table again?  That’s rude you know.”  They can hear Rei in the background sputtering about Nagisa stealing his phone to call Haru.

“Nanase,” Yamazaki growls and tugs harder at the blankets, “take your damn phone.”

“No.”

“Haru-chan?  Who is that?”  Nagisa’s voice gains a sly edge that Haru knows means he’s just figured out something that he finds absolutely fascinating.  “Did you have a sleepover Haru-chan?”

“Nanase.”  Haru scowls up when the blankets are finally yanked from his face, morning light even harsher than Yamazaki’s own scowl.

“Yamazaki.  Give me back my blanket.  Now.”  A slow smirk crosses Yamazaki’s face and Haru has the sudden urge to shove a pillow into it.

“Sorry.  Hazuki’s on the phone for you.  It seems urgent.”

He doesn’t even dignify the childish move of dropping his phone onto his face and walking away with his blankets with a response.  But he makes a note to get Yamazaki back for that.

“Haru-chan?  Was that Sou-chan?”  Haru smiles as Nagisa’s voice washes over him and a perfect plan forms.

“Nagisa.  Do you have any plans today?”

 

Telling Nagisa and Rei was easy.  So much easier than Makoto.  Nagisa listened, wide eyes narrowing as he glanced between the two of them.  Rei nodded slowly as they gave the barest details they could get away with for now.  Haru was sure there would be a more thorough discussion later.  But after a few minutes Nagisa had leaned back into Rei for just a moment and then jumped to his feet, usual sunny smile in place as he declared they were there to help Haru move so that’s what they were going to do.

It technically doesn’t take them too long to move everything and it would have gone even faster if Nagisa hadn’t insisted on opening one or two boxes each trip and spending time finding a spot for all of it right that moment.  But he had.  So it’s early evening by the time the last boxes are drug into the apartment and Yamazaki drops onto the couch with a sigh.

Rei follows Haru into the kitchen and continues helping him unpack and find room for all their things together while Nagisa and Yamazaki talk quietly in the living room.  Rei is good at it.  He has a good idea of where things should go and it leaves Haru free to cook while Rei occasionally hands him something he needs or asks where Haru wants something particular.

“I’m glad you seem to be doing better, Haruka-senpai.”

“I told you that you don’t have to call me ‘senpai’ anymore, Rei.”

“I know.”

Haru shakes his head and hands a handful of spices to Rei, watching as he carefully sorts through the ones from Yamazaki’s stuff and places Haru’s into place alongside them in the cupboard.  He frowns when he feels something crackling along their bond and he gets a sense of something like Yamazaki is trying to decide something serious.  Rei gasps and drops the bowls he had pulled out of one of Haru’s boxes, hurrying off into the living room.

Haru steps into the doorway and watches Rei kneel in front of the couch.  He manages not to flinch when Yamazaki’s eyes meet his, but barely.  He’s not sure what Yamazaki told Nagisa to make him and Rei react like that but he’s sure it has to do with either the bond or Haru’s health.

He never wanted to hurt his friends so much.

Something reaches out towards him, a searching sliver of energy, and his eyes snap back up to Yamazaki’s before he steps back into the kitchen to pick up Rei’s dropped bowls.  He’s not sure he can handle the rest of this.  The questions.  The worry.  The potential disappointment.  He’s disappointed enough people in his life already.

Yamazaki joins him in the kitchen but doesn’t do much other than stay out of his way and help him put some less used stuff on higher shelves.

No one talks much during the meal and Yamazaki waves them off into the living room afterwards.  Haru can tell he wants to give them some time alone and he isn’t sure if he should be grateful that Yamazaki is being considerate or frustrated because he doesn’t want to deal with it.

 

Nagisa is in his lap the moment he settles on the couch and the tears in his eyes make Haru feel about an inch tall but the hug he wraps Haru in erases that feeling almost the moment it happens.

“I wish you had told us Haru-chan.  It couldn’t have been easy.”  Nagisa sniffles and buries his face against Haru’s neck.  “We could have done something.  I don’t know what.  But you’re not alone.  So stop acting like it!”

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, eyes drifting up to meet Rei’s and include him in the apology.

“It really couldn’t have been easy,” Rei murmurs and nods his acceptance of Haru’s apology before glancing towards the kitchen.  “Excuse me a moment.”  Rei stands and steps into the kitchen as Nagisa finally pulls away and puffs his cheeks at Haru.

“No more secrets, Haru-chan.  We’re all friends.  Even Sou-chan.”

A jolt of lightning flashes down his spine and Haru tightens his arms around Nagisa for a moment.  He has no idea what Rei said or did to Yamazaki but when Rei comes back and settles on the couch Haru can feel relief and surprise skittering across the bond.  He gives Rei a look and Rei smiles at him.  Nagisa gives one decisive nod before turning in Haru’s lap to face Rei.

When Yamazaki hovers in the doorway a few minutes later Nagisa is in the middle of explaining how the power went out at the photographer’s studio he worked at last week.  Haru glances up and nods towards the other end of the couch.

Yamazaki sits down and Haru shifts a little at the twinge of loneliness that creeps to him.

They’re not quite there yet.  They’re still missing Rin and Makoto but it’s so close to being right that Haru can practically see it.  Can practically hear Makoto and Rin arguing about his and Yamazaki’s choice in decor.  Can almost see Nagisa rolling off his lap and onto Rin’s.  Can almost see Makoto leaning close to hear something Rei is saying.

“So why aren’t Mako-chan and Rin-chan helping you move?”

They all freeze.

“Nagisa-kun!”  Rei scolds and glances between them all.

“It’s a fair question, Rei-chan!”

“It is a fair question,” Haru says quietly.  “Makoto knew we were moving.”

“Rin is still pissed at me.”  Yamazaki shrugs when they look at him.  “I shot him a text letting him know we were looking at places but I never heard anything out of him.”

Nagisa frowns and Haru gets swept up by a sudden wave of affection through their bond and he pulls Nagisa into a hug and drops his chin onto Nagisa’s shoulder. “Why are they so mad?”

“If I may?”  Rei clears his throat.  “Makoto-senpai and Rin-san have very different feelings about soulbonds than Yamazaki-san and Haruka-senpai do.  They all feel strongly about their various opinions but where Makoto-senpai and Rin-san view bonds as very romantic and special Yamazaki-san and Haruka-senpai view them from a more practical standing.  Correct?”

“That sounds about right.”  Yamazaki says quietly and Haru nods.

“Okay.  So what?”  Haru can hear the pout in Nagisa’s voice.  “They’re mad just because they have different opinions?  Rei-chan and I have different opinions about our bond but that doesn’t change anything about it.”

“That’s a small part of it,” Yamazaki admits, “but I’m not one hundred percent sure about what the rest of it is.”

“Not telling them about the bond perhaps?  They would take it a bit more personally if you kept it a secret from them than Nagisa-kun and I did.”

Nagisa nods sagely and straightens up in Haru’s lap.  “Oh, yeah.  Secrets are bad Sou-chan.”  

“Makoto,” Haru starts, drawing their attention, and then frowns a little.  “He doesn’t seem really mad anymore.  But he’s keeping me at a distance.”  That’s the part that hurts.  Knowing Makoto isn’t really mad at him but that he isn’t close to him either.

Nagisa hums and tilts his head.  “Mako-chan doesn’t like confrontation.  Maybe he’s just afraid to talk to you ‘cause he thinks you guys will be mad at him for getting mad at you.”

“Maybe.”

“But enough of that.  How are you feeling Haru-chan?  Better?  Have you been swimming lately?  Can I see what you’ve been drawing?”

He holds onto that feeling of frustration and bitterness for a minute until Nagisa’s bouncing works it’s way under his skin and he lets out a huff of breath and pushes Nagisa out of his lap.  He doesn’t hide the smile on his lips when he holds out a hand to help him up and lead him down the hall to his room.

Nagisa was one of the few people he had never minded seeing his drawings.  He wasn’t sure if it was because of his energy or the way he never seemed confused by Haru’s art or if it was simply because he never questioned the drawings, never asked Haru why he drew what he did.  He simply flipped through Haru’s sketchbooks and chattered away.

“I’m really glad you and Sou-chan are getting along well.  And that he helped you.”  Nagisa flips through one book and picks up another, fingers tracing the patterns on the cover.  He drops onto his back on Haru’s bed and gives him a look.  “Though I really do wish you would have talked to us sooner.  I know Rei-chan and I aren’t as close to you all as we used to be since we’re younger and all that.  But we’re all still friends and we care about you all a lot.  If you need me to talk to Mako-chan or Rin-chan I will.”

Haru ruffles Nagisa’s hair and then plucks the sketchbook out of his hands.  “Thank you, Nagisa.”

 

 

He had suspected something when Yamazaki insisted he join him when he left.  They had only been moved in for two days and all of Yamazaki’s excuses of Haru needing “fresh air” and how he was “going to be fermenting soon” felt like complete bullshit.  But he had promised they could stop at the shop with the really high quality fish on their way back so Haru figured he could put up with whatever stupidity Yamazaki had planned.

He was honestly expecting to run into Nagisa or Rin or even Makoto “accidentally” on this little outing.  When they made it to the athletic center Yamazaki worked at without running into anyone they knew Haru was confused.  Suspicious and confused.  If he was better and reading their bond he might be able to tell if the feelings he was catching were smugness at tricking Haru into doing something or smugness at getting Haru out of the apartment.

As it was he sucked at the whole feeling out Yamazaki’s emotions through the bond thing and was simply stuck following him down the hallway to the office and standing there, bored, as Yamazaki filled out some papers.  A few minutes later the girl from the front desk poked her head in and Haru shifted away from the door.

“You gonna be much longer?  I got everything else all locked up already.”

“Uh probably another half hour or so.  There’s more here than I thought.” Yamazaki barely glances up and Haru narrows his eyes.  He may not be able to sort out the emotions he can sense through the bond well but he knows when Yamazaki is up to something.  “If you need to head home I can lock up the office when I’m done and let myself out.  I have my keys on me.”

“That would be awesome!  I have two huge tests coming up that I still need to cram a bit for.”

“Yeah.  Go.”

“Thanks, Sousuke-kun!”

Haru stares at him suspiciously as he continues filling out forms.  “What’s really going on?”  He finally asks when Yamazaki makes no move to look at him.

“You’re going swimming and I’m finishing the handful of forms that I’ve been putting off for months that my boss is ready to kill me for not finishing sooner.”

Haru stares at him, mouth hanging open, and shakes his head.  No way he heard that right.

“I’m what?”

Yamazaki reaches into a nearby filing cabinet and pulls out a small gym bag that he tosses to Haru.

“You’re going swimming.  Boss gave me permission so long as I lock up when you’re done and he won’t be held responsible if anything happens to you.”

Haru opens the bag cautiously and spots a pair of his jammers and a towel inside.

He could go swimming?  He hadn’t been swimming in months; not since he was told he needed someone with him because the school didn’t want to be held responsible for him being there alone.  He felt like he could barely remember what it felt like to be in the water.  To swim with no restrictions.  No one staring at him and watching him and waiting for him to fail.

His eyes dart from the bag in his hand to the pile of papers in front of Yamazaki, a silent  what about you darting between them.  Yamazaki laughs, looking far too pleased with himself and if Haru didn’t have the promise of  _ swimming _ dangling in front of him he’d say something to wipe the smirk off his face.

“Go.  I’m sure the water misses you.  I’ll finish this and come make sure you haven’t drowned in a bit.”

“The water wouldn’t drown me,” Haru states and spins on his heel.

 

One day he’d thank Yamazaki somehow.

For now he had a pool to meet.


	9. Some Storms Are Harder to Weather

_ Sou-chan doesn’t laugh much does he Haru-chan?  Maybe you could make him laugh to tell him thank you!!? _

Nagisa’s text rolls in his mind as he does laps.  It’s been a month since Yamazaki had let him start swimming.  He stops by most nights Yamazaki works and slips into the pool.  Sometimes he stops in an hour or two before they close.  Sometimes he stays a couple hours after they close.

He doesn’t mean to.  But after being away from the water so long he feels like he  needs to.  If Yamazaki didn’t have to hang around with him it would be ideal.  Not that Yamazaki bothers him.  He just wishes he could spend the time here in peace and not have that little niggling of guilt that he’s keeping Yamazaki up late all the time.

He supposes that if he started up classes again, appealed to the school and the coach, that he might be able to get permission to use the pool at the university whenever he wanted again.  He was doing much better these days.

His stroke and kick wasn’t quite as strong as it used to be.  But he had no problems.  The water accepted him just like always.  He was no longer the “poor kid” with so much lost potential.  He would be able to go back to just being ordinary.

There had never been anything to be afraid of.

“Nanase I’m not joking.  Get out.”

“You told me to swim,” he replies immediately, reveling in the echo of his voice around the empty room.  It felt so good to have a pool to himself.  Even if Yamazaki was technically there sending him glares and the occasional mild threat that really didn’t scare him at all.

He makes sure to stay near the center of the pool.  The last time they were here Yamazaki had snagged him with the pool life hook and drug him from the water.  Literally.  He made Yamazaki heft him from the pool like a wet sack.  Sadly it hadn’t discouraged Yamazaki any.

But Haru was determined that nothing would keep him from swimming again.  Not even Yamazaki’s grumpy fun hating self.

“Seriously Nanase.  I am exhausted.  I want to go home.”

“Then go.”

“I can’t leave you here alone.  That was part of the deal.”

Haru turns and dives under the water.  It felt nice.  It felt right.  To be under the water, swimming with all his might and feeling the water part for him, accepting him.  It was calming.  He does two more laps and, when Yamazaki does nothing to try to get him out, stops on the opposite end of the pool and watches him.

He bobs in the water and a thought pops into his head.

Yamazaki frowns down at his phone and sends a message before glancing up and meeting Haru’s eyes.

“When was the last time _you_ went swimming?”

He can feel the surprise zip between them.  

“Why?”  He shrugs and glances out the window.  He’s not sure why he asked it.  But now that it’s in his head he wonders if swimming would help.  If it would make Yamazaki’s nightmares go away like it did for Haru.  Yamazaki tosses his phone towards their bags and groans.  “Not since I finished my last physical therapy sessions.”

Haru thinks back through what he knows of Yamazaki’s sessions.  “That would have been -”

“About a year after graduation, yeah.”

“Then the nightmares?”

“About that long,” Yamazaki snaps defensively and glares when Haru raises his eyebrows.  “Why does it matter?  You need to get out of the pool so we can go home.”

This was it.  This was how Haru could thank him.  The water would help him.  It was so simple he’s a little disappointed it took him so long to figure out.

“You should swim.”

“I’m not swimming.  Just get your ass out of the pool.”

“The water will forgive you for being gone so long.”  He’s getting impatient with Yamazaki’s balking.  It was simple.  “Swim.”

“Oh did the water tell you that?”  Yamazaki’s voice is sarcastic, caustic even, but Haru can feel that slight pull in their connection.  That touch of lightning that reaches out when Yamazaki is curious about something Haru’s up to.  He swims towards Yamazaki with swift, even strokes and shakes his hair out of his face when he hits the wall and looks up.

“No.”  His voice is hushed like he’s sharing a secret and Yamazaki bends down a little to hear him.  “But you don’t have to be afraid of the water.  It’s not going to hurt you.”  He sticks his hand up in a gesture that flashes him back to high school and for a moment he wonders where Makoto is right now.  Then Yamazaki is bending down and reaching out for him and he smiles.  “Especially not when I’m here.”

The moment their hands meet he wraps his fingers around Yamazaki’s wrist and he feels surprise flash through their bond.

 

He can feel the panic that sets in when Sousuke hits the water.  The darkness that is trying to creep up on him and drag him under.  Sousuke flails and Haru swims close, fingers gripping Sousuke’s arm and wrist and guiding him back up. 

Sousuke breaches the surface and coughs.  “Haru I am going to drown you in the water you love so much.”

Haru does his best to share his knowledge of the water with Sousuke through the bond.  Sends him the warmth and comfort of the water.  Reminds him there’s nothing to be afraid of.

“You have to catch me first, Sousuke,” he calls out before diving under and darting past Sousuke.  He nudges his legs as he passes and he nearly sends Sousuke back under, if the growling when he pops back up is any indication.

“You are going to get it.”

“Not really feeling too threatened here.”

Sousuke surges forward and Haru feels the brush of fingers against his skin as he slips away.  He had forgotten how fast Sousuke could move.  How he was a force to be reckoned with when he was at peace with the water.  He kicks up water and splashes Sousuke’s face to buy himself an extra moment of time that he uses to slip behind him and pop up to splash him in the back of the head.

Sousuke whips around.  “Haruka,” he grits out as Haru slowly pops up a few feet away, small smile slipping onto his face.  Sousuke opens his mouth to say something and Haru splashes him again, smiling wider as he sputters and coughs.

He notices Sousuke’s movement a fraction of a second too late and he tries to shoot away when Sousuke launches at him.  But Sousuke’s arms are longer than he realized and he lets out a triumphant shout when he hooks his arm around Haru’s waist.  Haru lets out a whine and goes limp, weight nearly sinking his face into the water as he slumps over Sousuke’s arm.

 

“I thought you were planning on getting him out of the pool not joining him in it, Yamazkai-kun.”

Makoto’s voice rings through the room and Haru freezes.  Makoto sounds so happy.  So cheerful.  So  Makoto that Haru can feel relief trying to sneak through him.  Maybe.  Maybe it would be okay after all.  Maybe they would be okay.

“Well I was trying to,” Sousuke laughs as he drags them both to the edge of the pool.  “But he had other plans and I should have known it was too easy when he willingly swam up to me and stuck his hand out.”

Makoto’s laugh soothes the tension in his spine and Haru relaxes in Sousuke’s grip.  He glances up and sees Makoto’s hand waiting for him.

Haru throws a towel at Sousuke after Makoto pulls him from the pool and Makoto scolds him.

Sousuke wanders off to find a change of clothes and Haru slips back into his sweatpants and jacket.

“Why are you here?”  Makoto smiles and holds out Haru’s bag for him to stuff his towel in before they head off to find Sousuke.

“Well I thought Yamazaki-kun might need some help getting you out of the pool.  And I missed you.”  Haru stops and glances up at Makoto.  “And Nagisa may have suggested I was being childish and that I should just come talk to you already because, and I quote, ‘we’re all friends Mako-chan and being friends means you accept each other’s mistakes and you do your best to forgive them no matter what.’”

Haru buries his smile in his shoulder and leads the way to the lockers where Sousuke is waiting.

He spends most of the train ride half listening to Makoto scolding him about keeping Sousuke out so late so often because of swimming.  As they leave Sousuke gets a text and he sends a couple messages back and forth on their way back to the apartment.

“Good news?”  Makoto asks when Sousuke smiles as they round the corner to their apartment.

“Ah.  Apparently Rin is being brought over tonight as well.”  He laughs and rubs his neck.  “Looks like I won’t be getting any sleep tonight after all.”

Haru’s stomach drops a little at the idea of facing Rin.  He hasn’t seen him since a month or so after that morning he walked in on them asleep on the couch.  But Sousuke doesn’t seem too concerned.  Other than a touch of exhaustion he doesn’t sense anything coming through their bond.

Haru leans against Sousuke’s elbow and glances at the screen.

**_ We’ll send him back asap i promise. try not to make yourself sick on sugar _ **

_ SOU-CHAN YOU DO CARE!!! :D :D :D _

“Rei might not be getting much sleep either,” Haru mutters as he bumps Sousuke’s elbow.

“Excuse you my messages not yours.”  Sousuke holds the phone above his head to send a response.

Sousuke leaves them in the kitchen to change.  Haru stares at the fridge and wonders when being alone in a room with his best friend had ever felt this strained.  He tries to remember the last time he and Makoto had gone this long without talking or seeing each other.  He can’t.

 

Someone knocks at the door and Sousuke passes the kitchen to answer it.  Haru and Makoto glance at each other when they hear Rei’s terse voice.

“I apologize Sousuke-san but Rin-san and I have had enough discussion for today and I need to leave him in your care before either of us say anything further that we may regret.”

“Get back here,” Rin growls and Haru hears the door shut.  “Let me go Sousuke I’m not done yet.”

“It sounded like he was done.  Besides he’s probably already outside and a block away already.  At least.”  A few moments later Rin lets out a sigh and Sousuke steps into the kitchen doorway.

“Can one of you let Nagisa know Rei is on his way back and probably a little tense?”

“Sure thing,” Makoto says.  “Hi Rin.”  Rin freezes on his way past and then gives a half wave.

“Hey Makoto.”

Sousuke and Rin head down the hall and Makoto pulls out his phone to text Nagisa.  They stand in the kitchen in silence for a few minutes until Haru sighs and gestures for Makoto to follow him.  He can feel the tension from the bond crackling through him and he points out the living room and bathroom and leads Makoto to his room.  

He feels something snap and thinks he hears Rin crying softly from Sousuke’s room as they pass it and step into his room.

Makoto pulls his phone out again and frowns when he reads the message.

“Nagisa said to tell you ‘remember you’re not alone. No more secrets Haru-chan.’  What does that mean?”

 

Haru can picture Nagisa’s wide eyes looking up at him.  Feel his warm arms wrapped around his waist, his damp cheek pressed against Haru’s neck.  Fingers still shaking as they clench his shirt and he quietly berates Haru for not telling them sooner.  For keeping it a secret.

For almost letting them lose him without even knowing.

He takes a deep breath, eyes flicking from Makoto’s waiting gaze to the open doorway.

There was one thing he still hadn’t told Makoto.  It had never seemed like a huge deal to him.  But apparently it was to everyone else.

“What secret is Nagisa talking about Haru?”

“When the bond finally happened,” Haru says softly as his eyes drift back to Makoto, “I only had a couple months left to live.”

“Excuse me?”  Makoto’s voice is low and tense and Haru tries to swallow the ball of guilt choking him as his eyes widen.  Here it was.  This would be the last straw.  For real this time.  “You had how long left?”

Somewhere in his mind he hears Sousuke’s door open and he feels Sousuke’s exhaustion battling through their bond.  Sousuke’s frustration that this is all happening right now.  Sousuke’s worry for Haru and himself.

But mostly all he can focus on is the look on Makoto’s face.  The betrayal glimmering just under his controlled mask.

“Tachibana?”

Makoto’s eyes snap to Sousuke and Haru takes a deep breath.  Sousuke’s fear cracks between them like lightning when Makoto looks at him.

Haru never wanted this.  He never wanted all his friends so upset and hurt because of him.

He just wanted them all to swim together again.

 

“Two months or less?”  Makoto’s voice is clipped, barely controlled emotion dripping from each word and Haru freezes.  He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Makoto this angry at anyone or anything.  “I potentially had less than two months left with my best friend and no one thought to tell me?  Did  _ you _ know Rin?”  Makoto looks at Rin and Sousuke takes a deep breath and slides into the room next to Haru.

“I just found out today.”

“Why?”  Makoto’s gaze is flicking between Haru and Sousuke now.  Accusing and hurt in a way that makes Haru almost wish he had never agreed to Sousuke’s offer.  How had his choices taken such a wrong turn to have made everyone so angry?  Would someone had stopped him before they all reached this point had he talked about it with any of them?  Would he even be here right now if he had listened to any of them?  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Silence settles over the room and the air crackles and shimmers with energy.  Haru can feel the hairs on his arm standing up.  Rin fidgets in the doorway and the rustling of his clothes crashes through the room like thunder.  Makoto is silent in front of them, a massive storm cloud hovering above them, ready to rip open and drown them in a moment.

It’s too much.  Too quiet.  The oppressive silence of his lonely apartment begging to be filled with the proof Haru was still alive.  With the proof he was still here.

“Because everyone already treated me like I was broken!”  Haru finally snaps, voice filling the room lightning fast cracking the sky open.  Haru shifts his weight so he can feel the heat of Sousuke’s arm radiating between them.  That tiny comfort pushes him forward.  “You think I wanted them to act like I was completely hopeless and unfixable?  How could I tell anyone when everyone already treated me like I might as well have been dead.”

 

“‘Just treat him like normal,’” Makoto murmurs and glances over to Sousuke.  “‘Don’t treat him like he’s fragile or broken.’  You told me.  You told me and I fixed it for a few days and then turned around and did it all over again.”

Haru feels so tired.  Tired of all this drama, even though he knows a lot of it is his own fault.  Tired of everyone treating him so differently.  Tired of his life being so screwed up before he’s even twenty-two.

The air in the room feels heavy.  Like the thick dampness in the air between storms.  Makoto looks so guilty all of a sudden and that’s not right.  Haru’s the one who screwed up and kept secrets.  Haru’s the one who pushed everyone away.

 

Sousuke sighs.

“Like I just told Rin.  Don’t blame yourself.  We all have our own lives, our own things going on that we’re focused on.  We can’t always pick up the right things from each other no matter how long we’ve known each other and unfortunately none of us have really gotten much better at communicating sometimes.”  He shifts that last inch to bring Haru’s arm against his.  “Look.  We made our choice.  Was it a dick move not to tell anyone?  Technically yes.  But it was  our choice .  It’s done.  We did it.  And you can be mad at us if you want to be.  But I’m just tired of all of this,” he gestures between the four of them.  “If you two can’t accept the choices we made, I’m sorry.  But they’re already in the past.  If you really want to do something about it then just give us a little support.”

He presses his arm against Haru’s and then heads back to his own room.  Sousuke’s door shutting seems to echo in the apartment.

“Is that how you feel too?”  Haru glances at Rin.  “I know that bonds can sometimes make you feel each other’s emotions and stuff.”

“I agree with Sousuke.  I know I screwed up.  I should have told you both how close it was and I should have told you what we were planning and trying to do.  But I didn’t.”  Makoto shifts uncomfortably and Haru bites his lip, working up the courage to just say it.  “But I’m here now.”  Once again he’s begging Makoto to understand with his gaze.  Asking forgiveness even though he knows he should have used up all of his years ago.  He glances to Rin and rubs at his cheek, not even surprised to feel the tears slipping down them.  “That counts for something, right?  I just wanted a little more time with all of you.”  After a minute he lets out a long breath and looks at them both.  “I need to go to bed.  You two can stay tonight.”  He gestures to his bed.  “There are pillows and blankets.”

 

He leaves them in his room and crosses the hall to Sousuke’s.  He can hear him tossing and turning when he opens the door and he can feel the unease coming from him even while he’s asleep.  Haru slips under the blanket and curls up against Sousuke’s side.  It’s the first time since the day before they moved in that they’ve shared a bed but Haru needs the closeness right now and, as he settles down and curls himself around Haru, apparently Sousuke did too.


	10. Some Things Change... Some Don't Have To

The apartment door slamming open doesn’t wake him up.  He’s been awake for a few minutes but he’s simply too warm and too drowsy to bother moving from his place completely buried under Sousuke’s comforter.  Footsteps speed down the hallway and Sousuke’s bedroom door flies open.  

“Sou-chan!”  Haru manages to adjust himself enough that Nagisa’s cheerful arrival in the bed puts him closer to Sousuke than Haru and he smiles a little at the grunt that Sousuke lets out when Nagisa lands.

“Haru-chan!”  Haru grumbles and curls closer to Sousuke, face smushing into his side.  He refuses to acknowledge the world outside the blanket.  No matter how cheerful or sunny or chipper it was.  “Come on!  Wake up!  It’s time for breakfast and stuff!  I’m starving.”

Sousuke lets out a sleepy, irritated, “No.”

“Don’t be that way Sou-chan.”  Haru shakes his head under the blanket, rubbing his nose against Sousuke’s shirt.

“Haru agrees with me.” 

Nagisa goes silent for a moment, which immediately worries even Haru’s drowsy mind, and then he pokes at Haru through the blanket.

“Rei-chan already had a bath going.  Guess I’ll tell him to just drain the tub.”

He changed his mind.  A warm bath is a perfectly acceptable reason to leave the warmth of a bed.  Nagisa giggles as he rolls aways and slides out from under the blanket.  He tosses his shirt at Nagisa as he leaves.

 

Rei is sitting on the edge of the tub testing the water when Haru steps inside.

“Good morning Haruka-senpai.”  He stands and steps to the side, averting his eyes as Haru strips off his his pajamas and boxers and slips into the tub.

“Mornin’” Haru murmurs and slides into the water.  It was nearly the perfect temperature and he sighs happily.

“Nagisa-kun was rather worried about you all last night after I got home and when we woke up we decided it would be best to check up on you.”  Rei explains as Haru sinks further into the tub until his nose is barely above the water.  “Makoto-senpai was asleep on the couch until Nagisa-kun slammed the door open and I believe Rin-san was asleep in your bed when I peeked inside to look for you.”

“Rei,” he says quietly as Rei opens the door to leave, “thank you.”  He hopes that Rei knows he’s not just thanking him for the bath.  But for checking on him, on all of them.  For being here, yet again.  Rei adjusts his glasses and gives Haru a bright smile.  The one that has always stunned Haru a little with it’s brilliance.

“Of course, Haruka-senpai.”

Haru sinks under the water as the door closes.

 

Contentment hums around him and he smiles.

He soaks until his stomach growls and his fingers start to turn pruny and the water turns cool.

Everyone is in the kitchen when he shuffles in, hair still damp from his bath, and slips over to the counter.

“Rei can appreciate how an omelette looks over how it tastes if he wants to Rin.  You don’t have a monopoly on omelette appreciation methods,” Makoto chuckles and shakes his head.

Sousuke gives Haru a nod and finishes rinsing off the cutting board, handing it over and gesturing to the mackerel at the end of the counter.  Haru reaches past him for a handful of spices and Sousuke hands him a knife.  Sousuke slides an omelette in front of Rei, Rin, and Makoto and steps back to the stove.  Haru finishes seasoning his mackerel and steps in front of Sousuke.  He had stopped waiting for Sousuke to finish using the stove before starting his own food the day he realized Sousuke’s arms were long enough to just reach around him if he stood in front of him.  When Haru’s hungry he’s hungry and none of Sousuke’s sighs or glares stood in the way of him and his meal.

Sousuke, as expected, simply reaches around Haru and flips his pancake before leaning forward and resting his chin on Haru’s head.  It was an annoying move but if it meant he got his food - especially his mackerel - faster than waiting for Sousuke to finish at the stove Haru was content to put up with it.

He realizes everyone has gone quiet when Sousuke tenses against him and he glances over to see everyone staring at them, watching them work in synch.

“Can I have more pancakes, Sou-chan?”

Nagisa’s voice breaks whatever awkward spell that had been cast on them and the room comes back to life as Rei chides him and suggests a few bites of his omelette if he’s still hungry and Rin and Makoto laugh quietly as Nagisa pouts.

 

“This feels right,” Haru mutters just loud enough for Sousuke to hear as he watches their friends laughing at the table.  It’s easy and fun and they’re all here together.

“Yeah.  It does.”

This.  This is what home felt like, Haru decides as Sousuke slides his pancakes onto a plate and sets another plate next to the stove for Haru before sitting down at the table.  He finally found it for himself.

And maybe he’s not some hero in a story but that’s okay because this?  This feeling?  This warmth?

He doesn’t think he’ll mind if it doesn’t change too much in the future.


End file.
